Collide
by twowritehands
Summary: An avatar's life is touched by many destinies—Aang's was bound to collide with at least one, get tangled. Katara and Zuko's destiny is a difficult one, made harder by a displaced avatar searching for his own, and Toph keeping a secret about a past life
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note: **This fic was written all at once a long time ago, but it wasn't finished, and without an ending we couldn't publish it. Now at last, it has one._

P.S.

_Something has gone wrong with the scene breaks, so forgive the apparent sudden changes between locations and time-but it shouldn't be too confusing _

_**Disclaimer:** It's their's not ours_

**The Flowing River**

The chamber was dark and empty except for the Fire Lord and his flames. The door opened with a gust of heat and was slammed with a ribbon of blue fire. The Fire Lord opened his eyes. The orange light of his meditation flames danced over the small angled face of a girl, his daughter. She knelt before him. The Fire Lord looked to her right.

"Where is your brother?"

The girl opened her mouth to speak but the door opened then by the force of a hand on the handle. It closed softly by the same force and hurried, padded footsteps announced the arrival of the missing brother.

"You are late Zuko." The Fire Lord said; his tone heavy with disappointment. Zuko knelt beside his sister. "Forgive me father."

Azula looked at him from the corner of her eye. Zuko's hair was wet and dripping. A small smile of cruel delight tugged at her lips. Zuko spotted it from the corner of his eye and his back tensed. _Please, Azula, don't say anything!_ He begged silently.

Today was his lucky day; his sister didn't tell on him. They listened to what their father wanted to say and walked backwards out of the room when he dismissed them. When the doors closed with Azula's ribbon of blue flame once again, she turned to her brother with her cruel smile full force.

Zuko closed his fists. "Thanks for not saying anything."

"Oh I would have if he had asked."

Zuko's jaw tightened. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing him alarmed. He turned to go, but Azula kept pace with him. "_Swimming_," she said, as if the word tasted bad, "Maybe if you didn't love splashing in that pond so much you would be a decent fire-bender."

Zuko stopped walking. Azula laughed until she was out of sight.

The warmth of the sun, the thunder of the falling water; the rush of the plunge severed Zuko from it all.

The blue, green tinged water closed around him like an embrace. Here the only sound was the hum of silence and the vibrations of the waterfall above. Zuko swam down and down, out of the glowing water, into the black depths. He liked to come here sometimes, where it was coldest. It was another world. It was refreshing. The cold shocked his system, left him numb and shivering; it actually made living in his world desirable.

Zuko's hands brushed the smooth pebbles at the bottom. He turned and kicked off for the surface, trailing bubbles to relieve his burning lungs. The thick summer air was welcome. He floated on his back as he absorbed the power and heat of the sun.

"You really like this place, don't you Prince Zuko?" Iroh asked, finding his nephew sitting in the sun beside the small lake. The boy looked up at his uncle. "Yeah, I do. There's just something about it," he looked out at the water, and the lush green hills framing it from the sky. "I don't know what it is..."

"Paint it." Iroh said with a shrug that was lost under his girth.

Zuko looked up at his uncle. "Paint it?"

"Sometimes when an artist paints, what comes out on the canvas is not what he sees, but what he feels when he looks at the image…If you are curious to learn what you love about my garden, then paint."

"How is it coming, Prince Zuko?" Iroh asked.

Zuko was in front of a small easel, paint in hand and brush in teeth as he measured the waterfall with a thumb. He sighed. "You were wrong, Uncle. I've painted it and—nothing!"

Iroh studied the painting with his hand on his chin. It was a decent landscape, if he was any judge, but there was something missing… "You must try again."

Zuko groaned. "I'm tired of painting!"

"You can stop for today. Try again tomorrow."

The next day, Zuko thought he would find his answer, but again by the time he finished his painting it didn't feel like he felt. He threw it on the ground and stomped on it. Iroh scratched his head. "It's still early. Try again and then we'll have lunch."

Zuko looked at the canvas. Painting wasn't impossible. It wouldn't beat him. He picked up the canvas, dusted off the back, and started over. Iroh smiled and left him to his work.

An hour later, he returned with a picnic. "Is it coming along?"

Zuko stepped from behind the easel and smiled sheepishly. "I haven't started yet…"

Iroh chuckled only because he could sense that his nephew had already found his answer. Zuko was bursting to say it. "I started to paint it, but that finally made me see…" He turned and looked at the water. "I've been trying to paint at the wrong time of day…I couldn't see it."

"See what, Prince Zuko?"

"The water's fire," he said. "Look at the way the lake hold's the light. The way it dances like a real flame…"

Four Years Later

The flames super heated the air right in front of Katara's face, singeing her eyebrows. Her momentary distraction caused her water whip to miss its target. The crack of cold water on bare skin came before the sharp yowl and a rude curse.

Fire cracked through the sky and then his face was in hers. Anger burned in his eyes as real as the fire in his hands. Though silent, the scar around his left eye seemed to threaten her better than the threat he voiced,

"The next time you hit me will be the last time you ever water bend." He spoke quietly, intensely, and the smell of mint tea was still on his breath. Katara lifted her chin, meeting his fiery gaze with her own ice-cold ones.

"Maybe if you watched where you put your flames, I could watch where I put my water!" She said and then promptly shoved him from her personal space.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He demanded, loudly.

"You keep getting in my way!" She shouted.

"Um, guys?" Aang tried as Zuko exploded into another string of curses, and began relaying all the times her water had ever whipped him, tripped him, made him slip, or gone up his nose. It did happen a lot, but Katara would not stand silently and listen to his crude insults. She spoke over him, maintaining that it was his lack of control that got in her way, inevitably making her get in his way. His flames were always coming too close, burning her, making her dunk for her life.

"Guys stop it! We're friends!" Aang wailed, but his air-bending attempt to separate them failed—once out of each other's reach, they only began throwing water and flames at each other.

The boomerang whirled through the air between the two benders, circling around Zuko and returning to the hand that had thrown it. Once he had they're attention, the water-tribe warrior stepped between them, to shield his sister from the fire prince as much as the fire prince from his sister.

Sokka crossed his arms, "Fighting each other isn't going to stop the fire lord, it just makes him stronger."

"I can't fight beside him!" Katara cried, adding, "I _won't_."

"Good," Zuko shot back, "You weren't any use anyway!"

"That's enough." Aang said as he stepped in beside his older friend, who added, "Yeah, Zuko, you know Katara is an amazing bender—and you are too." He added to Zuko in an attempt to smooth things over by feeding his ego.

"That's true," Katara said, turning her back on them with her chin in the air, "but fire and water just aren't meant to fight together."

"Finally something we agree on." Zuko said, turning his back, too. Aang and Sokka looked at one another for a moment, lost. Sokka sighed, returned his blade to its sheath and slumped away,

"Just don't kill each other. Please." He said over his shoulder as he went. Aang stood and looked from Katara's back to Zuko's. Both stood in firm resolve, refusing to look at one another or to continue practicing until the other one was gone. Katara's words that fire and water didn't belong on the same side were not setting well with the avatar.

Surely they could, surely they did. An idea came to him, and he hurried away to meditate…

"She said that fire and water can't fight beside each other," Aang explained to Roku, "Can she be right?"

"All things belong in the same circle." He replied. "No two things can ever get too far apart before they are the same again."

Aang frowned, "Huh?"

"Think of it this way: the world is round so if you tried to walk away from me as far as you could go, you would eventually end up right beside me again."

"So you're saying that Fire and Water are not so opposite that they can't be in harmony?"

"That is exactly what I'm saying. In fact, I'm saying that there is a way to make them not opposite at all, but the same."

"How?"

"I call it _Dui Bi_, the contrast and balance."

"You invented it?"

"Not I, the earth bender before Kyioshi, when he fell in love with his wife, an air bender. If earth and air can be the same, then so can fire and water."

"Please," Aang sank to his knees and lowered his head, "Teach me."

"Aang!" Katara cried as he floated down from Appa's back. "Where have you been?"

"In the spirit world," He replied, "I needed advice from my past lives."

"About what?" Zuko asked. Aang's smile stretched across his face, and he looked from Zuko to Katara and back in a way that made both of them feel uneasy.

"I've found a way to help the two of you get along," he replied.

"We're all getting tired of the two of you complaining about each other." Aang explained, "So I went searching for a solution, and I think I've found one."

"What is it?" Katara asked.

"_Dui Bi_."

"_Dui Bi_?" Katara repeated, "I've never heard of it."

"I'm not surprised." Aang replied. "Think about it, it's been a while since opposites were on the same side. Air hasn't been able to fight beside Earth because there are none left, and fire has been water's enemy for longer than anyone can remember. Circumstances prevented anyone from practicing _Dui Bi_ for a hundred years or more."

"So you just came up with this on your own?" Zuko asked.

"Yes." Aang shrugged, "I mean, in another life I did. I created it so that Earth and Air could fight together. Adapting it for Water and Fire isn't hard."

He turned and walked to the center of their makeshift practice yard and everyone followed. Katara and Zuko took the stances of respectful students at the edge of the yard.

"Fire bending uses strong arm and leg movements," Aang demonstrated with a few moves, fire bursting from him in a glorious display. "Water bending is about keeping proper alignment, breath, and visualization." He drew water from a bowl and made it expand over everyone and rain down.

"_Dui Bi_ is a series of moves that allows these two fighting styles to compliment each other." Aang explained, fluidly moving from fire bending to water bending in a series of moves. As he did, he drew near his students,

"Fire is intense and passionate." He said as he passed Zuko in a flurry of flames. He paused in front of Katara, his eyes growing soft as he took in her natural beauty, "Water is quick to adapt and kind." Katara blushed under the complimenting tone in his voice, which had somehow seemed to take on a manly quality.

Aang stopped when his movements brought him back to the center. "Do as I do.' He said. He began moving and they mirrored him. When the movements repeated several times, reinforcing memory, he stopped in the opening stance, "Zuko, you start here."

Zuko matched Aang's stance. The younger boy changed position and ordered Katara to start there. "Now you begin, move through the moves in order. You start together and finish together."

The nature of the moves meant that Zuko would be fire bending with moves that were more like water bending, and Katara would water bend with moves similar to fire. Zuko would always be doing the thing Katara just did, in the same place she just did it, yet she would have moved along already, out of his way.

Though they moved slowly due to inexperience and concentration, both were astonished to find that they could bend their respective elements using almost identical moves and it didn't seem to matter how complicated the move got, they never bumped into each other. Whatever Katara was doing, Zuko was right there, seeming to balance it.

Laughter escaped Katara, "This is amazing, Aang!" She cried as all thoughts of the hopelessness of fighting beside Zuko vanished: with practice, this was going to be easy! Aang smiled, relieved that his plan was working. Sokka dropped a hand on his shoulder, "Good thinking, Aang." He said.

Facing each other, they moved like reflections, flame reflecting water, or water reflecting flame. When he lifted an arm, hers went with it, somehow more gracefully. He stretched out a leg, and hers swept deftly beneath it. When he took a step forward, her foot was already moving backward. Suddenly it was as if they had never gotten in each other's way, they'd never knocked together, tripped, gotten wet or burned. How could they, when they moved so easily together?

His flames surged from his fists and her water was there, surging from her canteen alongside it. He could almost feel her cool liquid against his heat, as if she were the welcome cold side of his pillow at night.

His flames would rip through the air, a roaring, fiery beast, and her water whip would tear from its heart, piping hot and sharp, and slash the target open from head to toe seconds before the flames enveloped it.

Sokka, Aang and Toph would often watch them exercise, cheering them on as their elements, once thought to be so opposite, moved as one deadly force. Toph enjoyed making teetering mounds of dirt for them to demolish. She made the earth dummies pop up all around them, and move like real people.

Lost in concentration, Katara often stared into Zuko's eyes as they worked together. He stared, unseeing, back at her as he made sure to move exactly as the Avatar had said. Soon they knew the moves so well that they needn't concentrate as they ran through them and then he began to realize that her eyes weren't always icy and blank, like when she was angry.

He finally placed them as exactly like a deep, calm lake resting in the shade. Mystery lay in their depths, impenetrable by light. Power was there, too; the power to carve valleys, wear away rock, to survive losing a mother…

A sharp blade of water sliced through the air between them, whirled around both as it picked up momentum and then hurled itself at the target. Zuko's eyes went wide—that hadn't been part of the _Dui Bi_ teaching, she was deviating, adding to it.

Toph crossed her arms, "Well, it looks like water-bending can be as intense and passionate as fire. Way to go, Katara!"

She blushed, "Thanks, Toph."

Zuko looked away from the demolished earthen target, back at his partner. Kartara grinned, raised an eyebrow. Silently agreeing, they repeated that move of the exercise, but this time, Zuko made his fire into a rope, which raced ahead of the water blade and wrapped around the target, holding it in place as the water cleaved it in two.

Zuko stopped, panting and staring at their joined destruction. When he looked at her, she noticed that the light in his eyes, so often flickering like the flames he wielded, was more playful than daunting.

"You want to see what else we can improve?" He asked. She nodded.

Laughter bubbled out of Toph and she cracked her knuckles, "Let's do this." She said as Zuko and Katara took the beginning stance of _Dui Bi_.

Zuko smiled as he held Katara's gaze, raised his eyebrows. She raised hers as well, accepting the challenge. The first several stages of the exercise featured no bending; these steps were meant to loosen the two benders, and allow them to recognize each other's bending presence. Katara noticed during these first few moves that Zuko's bending presence was, for want of a better word, exhilarating.

His every move was done with a level of intensity that never wavered. When the heat of his flames wrapped around the watery extension of her arms, her spine tingled from the thrill of the flames licking their surface, like a hundred hot butterfly wings fluttering across the surface of a pond. His fire bending made the air around him almost crackle with concentrated energy. That energy refreshed Katara, enlivened her; she could almost imagine that his flames were putting bubbles in her water, stimulating it, and making it as lively and playful as fire.

The first bending move came and along with it, a massive column of dirt raced toward them. His fire cracked out of his fist and slammed into the dirt pillar, as usual, but his other hand came above his head and a whip of fire shattered the biggest piece of the rumble as it fell. Impressed, Katara answered with a move of her own, first enveloping another approaching target in water, and then freezing it solid.

They continued, adding a water-whip here, a surge of fire there, and the whole time, neither one ever felt the pain of the other's element. Often his firework made her gasp, or her water work made him exclaim in cheer. Every time one of their targets exploded beneath their joined power, the next move seemed to pack more force.

When the exercise came to an end, it was to see the last target in the practice yard explode in shards of ice under the awesome power of a bolt of lightening, which streamed right out of Zuko's fingers.

Katara yelped, having never been so near lightening before, the sizzles in the air made all the little hairs on her arms stand on end.

Zuko's skin was glistening with sweat, his breath seemed to tear out of his nostrils quicker than he could pull it in, and little strands of his hair, lose from its tie, was lifting into the air of their own accord from the excess energy of the lightening. He was staring, with wide-eyes and a mixture of fascination and horror, at the bits of ice lying around them, pulverized by his power.

"Wow." Katara said when she'd caught her breath.

Zuko looked at her, "I didn't know I could do that." He admitted.

"I was wrong." Katara said. When Zuko looked puzzled, she explained, "We're good together."

The corner of Zuko's mouth went up, his cheeks tinted with red and Katara heard her own words in a different way,

"I mean—you know, we fight well together," She explained and he laughed,

"We do." He agreed.

"Do me a favor, Zuko." Toph said loudly as she made the mound of dirt she stood on roll towards them, "Don't _ever_ throw lightening in my direction again!"

"I'm sorry!" Zuko balked. He ad completely forgotten about tough little Toph, "Did I hurt you?"

"Not that time." Toph replied drily. Her eerily blank eyes seemed to peer right through him. Zuko smoothed his hair back, forcing a light chuckle. As he did, he noticed the rank smell emitting from his pits, and how drained he felt from the lightening.

"I'm going to call it quits for the day." He said, strolling backwards toward the river water, "Katara, thanks for the…" He had no idea what he was saying and finished lamely, "today." He made hand gestures to imply that he meant _Dui Bi_ and all they'd accomplished together.

"What was that?" Toph asked.

"What?" Katara asked. When Toph didn't say anything, Katara shrugged and headed toward the sky bison to feed him. Toph remained where she was, staring after the vibrations of Katara, lost in thought.

Sokka approached, "Hey," he said, "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure yet." Toph replied, and then turned to head for the tree line, to collect firewood. Sokka frowned after his friend then looked at his sister, then Aang, who was putting up the tents, and finally Zuko, who was in the river. He harrumphed, deciding that if it was any of his business, someone would let him know.

That night, Zuko dreamed of Katara. She was standing at the edge of a pond and she was water bending. With fluid movements of her wrists, she made the water go like the waves of the oceans. She worked steadily, pulling the water toward her and then releasing it, pulling it, releasing it, pulling it, releasing it…

Zuko was the water.

She had complete control of him. He moved toward her and then rolled away. There was nothing to do to stop it. Nothing he wanted to do. She was his master and it felt natural. There was a word for this feeling; surrender.

Zuko woke violently.

He was relieved to find he was lying on his mat on the ground beside the dying fire, and that he had control of his body. He sat up, looked around the camp. Everyone was asleep. Aang and Sokka were on either side of him, circling the fire. Katara was curled on her mat on the other side of it, and behind her Toph was in her earth tent a few paces away from the group.

The light of the smoldering embers made Katara's serene face seem to dance in the shadows of her flowing hair. Something stirred deep in his memory.

Uncle's garden pond, the one with the waterfall, the time Uncle told him to paint it to find its beauty. The way the water held the glow of fire had been the thing to captivate him, to suspend him in awe. If ever he thought about it, that pond in the dying light of the sun was the most beautiful thing in the world.

Zuko couldn't breathe when he saw a living Water's Fire sleeping across from him now. She was dazzling in the light of fire, holding the orange glow as her own. Zuko felt something in his chest melt a little—the sensation was as out of place as the one from his dream. Melting implied ice; water, and there certainly wasn't anything like water in his chest, he told himself firmly.

He quickly flexed his finger and killed the fire completely. Darkness settled around him like a blanket, but its blank canvass wasn't enough to keep his attention from drifting back to the image of Katara at the lake's shore, bending his soul…

With a roaring flare, a full sized fire erupted in the pit, burning big and brightly enough to block Zuko's view of that side of the camp completely. It disturbed Sokka, who rolled away from the heat with a grunt, and Aang who drew a deep breath and released it with enough force to move the fire an inch or two away from him, back toward Sokka, who grunted again and rolled further away, mumbling something to Suki.

The next morning, Katara couldn't wait to practice fighting beside fire again. She walked around the camp sight, waiting for Zuko to wake up—it must have taken a lot out of him. He had been the first to go to sleep and now the last to wake up. She considered shaking him awake, but didn't. He needed rest. She wanted him to be at the top of his game for their next session.

"I'll practice the Dui Bi with you Katara." Aang said with a shrug when she admitted that she as waiting for Zuko to wake up before starting her exercises. This notion stopped Katara in her tracks. "Hey, you can!" She said. She had somehow forgotten that there were two fire-benders present. "Okay!"

She took her beginning stance, and Aang took his. She started, sweeping her arms through the air as if she were the fire-bender, though she bent water instead. Aang followed in her footsteps, moving his hands like a water bender and actually bending water as he went, since he was capable it. Katara smiled at him as they went through the warm up section, the part designed to loosen their muscles and get them accustomed to each other's presence.

It was completely different than what it had been the day before. Katara had been expecting the exhilarating presence of fire, to feel it crackling and popping beside her as if she fought within a furnace of raw energy. Today she felt none of that. Aang's presence she did feel—the smooth, cosmic power that glowed like a star; distant and cold but bright enough to make itself known. It made her understand something she had never considered before: fire-benders were all different. Aang's fire was a tamed thing. Zuko's was wild.

She wanted to fight with the wild one.

When Katara reached the bending steps, she moved first in her traditional water-bending style, flinging water up and letting it rain down as stinging sleet. Behind her, Aang mirrored the exact move, but flung fire up instead. It streaked down like a thousand little meteors. None of it burnt her because she had performed another move, this time moving her arms and legs as if she was a fire-bender again, which formed a globe of cold water around her that protected her from the falling fire.

"Good job, Katara!" He said, complimenting the difficult move. She smiled. "Thanks Aang."

He copied her movements exactly and two rings of fire spun away from him, merging with her globe and boiling the water. Together, they sent it careening into the earth dummies that Toph was sending in their direction. When it dissipated, there was nothing but smoking mud left behind. Sokka clapped.

Zuko woke from a dead, thankfully dreamless sleep to find that the sun was all the way up and that every one else in the camp was up and busy. He sat up, feeling embarrassed that he slept in so late while everyone else had so much work to do. He found them in the practice yard, of course.

Toph had cut this practice yard into the side of a mountain, meaning that one side of the yard had an earthen wall. Sokka was perched on the top, looking down at his sister and the Avatar. He wasn't actually watching, but deeply lost in maps and planning with Suki.

Toph stood beside the warriors, earth bending Aang and Katara's targets into life with maniacal laughter each time one was destroyed. Zuko was surprised to see that Katara was practicing _Dui Bi_ with Aang. His surprise was strange. He had no idea why this should bother him at all.

Zuko didn't drop down beside Sokka, but remained standing off to the side, at a distance; the only way he was comfortable. He didn't feel like a part of their family.

Watching _Dui Bi_ from the outside was a very different experience than being part of it. From here he could see the exercise as a whole, and the full destruction of the bending. It was impressive. He didn't doubt that it would be terrifying to see an enemy move like this. He wondered if this was how he and Katara had looked the day before.

Then he realized that what he was seeing was the combined work of a naturally talented water bender and the Avatar. Of course it hadn't looked like this when he'd done it. He felt jealous when he saw the full force of Aang's fire-bending. He would never be that powerful, that in control of the fire. When Aang fire-bent, it was as if every lick of the flame was deliberate, on purposed, ordered. There was nothing the fire did that Aang didn't want it to do.

Suddenly, fire exploded out of the arena, engulfing it, shooting hundreds of feet up in the air. Sokka, Suki, and Toph flinched away covering their faces to shield the heat. When the flames receded, Aang and Katara were frozen in the final pose of _Dui Bi_. The earth all around was jet black and smoldering. Her water surrounded them. It had protected them from the inferno Aang had just created. There was even a perfect ring of grass left, the bit of ground they stood on as her water gracefully flowed back into her canteen.

Sokka stood and clapped. "You taught him well, Zuko," he said. Zuko was pulled out of the sea of envy he'd sunk into. Aang turned to him and pressed his fist into his palm, "Thank you, Sifu Zuko." He said.

That's right. Zuko had taught Aang fire-bending. This was partly his doing as well. Pride filled his chest, but he waved a hand, "The dragons taught you true bending. I just taught you how to punch."

Everyone laughed and Katara waved him down. "Come practice with me."

"Yeah, do lightening again!" Sokka said.

Zuko shook his head, "You keep practicing with Aang. I'll run through some exercises on my own."

He hadn't wanted to stop fighting with her, but he knew better than to indulge himself. He had to focus on achieving his role in ending the war; and until that happened, he couldn't get distracted.

Just that morning, all of the fire-nation had gathered to see the coronation of Fire-Lord Zuko. His speech promising a new era, where fire worked in harmony with the rest of the elements to rebuild the world, was touching and gave plenty for people to talk about as they dispersed. After an entertaining tea, where Sokka tried to capture the moment with a pathetic drawing, it was time to go home, at last.

They were packing Appa for the journey back to the South Pole. Suki was coming in order to marry Sokka before the Elders of the Tribe. Toph was coming because she had no where else to go; she and Aang were already making plans to visit other places after the South Pole.

Toph and Suki were excited; they'd never been to a world of ice before. Katara and Sokka were laughing and trying to explain how there wasn't anything to see.

"Do you think the Elders will like me?" Suki asked nervously. Sokka laughed and planted a light kiss on her cheek. "Of course they will."

"They'll like you better than they like Sokka, that's for sure." Katara said, evoking a strong belly laugh from everyone except Sokka, who rolled his eyes. "I'm sure they've forgotten that by now." He said.

Katara shrugged. Suki traded an intrigued look with Aang, and Toph likewise looked interested to hear what had happened, but neither Sokka nor Katara divulged the secret. Aang shrugged it off and continued packing the food they would need for a straight shot to the South Pole. This was something the avatar had noticed early on about the two water tribe members; they often spoke of something from their tribe that they both knew a great deal about, but never did they offer the story to the rest of them.

Once when Toph had asked to hear more details, Sokka had shrugged the matter away and cracked a joke about water tribe confidentially privilege. After that the brother and sister seemed to speak less of things like that, provoking less questions from the rest of them; but Aang had continued to observe them and found that they both seemed to know everything that had happened to the other. They had no secrets between them. Not even private things like kisses. Sokka knew about every kiss Aang had given Katara—and had let Aang know it with meaningful glances—and Katara was the only one not surprised by Sokka's actions during Yue's departure, or Suki's return.

"I can't wait to see if I can see anything on the ice and snow-covered ground." Toph said.

"I can't wait to marry you," Sokka said to Suki, rubbing noses wit her. The couple had become sickeningly lovey-dovey since the end of the war. Katara rolled her eyes with her friends. She was happy that her brother had found love, but she didn't appreciate him showing it off, rubbing it in her face.

The regal shadow of a fire-lord fell across them.

"Hey Zuko!" Aang said happily. "We're just about ready to leave. Are you sure you can't spare a week or two for the trip? It'll be fun."

Zuko smiled. "I wish I could, but I have a lot to do here."

"You'll be a great Fire-Lord, Zuko." Katara said. Zuko smiled, blushing slightly. "Thanks. I—I actually wanted to talk to you," Zuko said to Katara.

"About what?" she asked, stepping aside with him. He laughed but didn't answer straight off. They walked around the building, to the garden there.

"You look better," Katara said to break the ice. It was true; she had only been able to revive him after the lightening, professional healers had taken it from there. Zuko's natural pale color was back, flushing red every time he didn't say what he was thinking. Right now, a rosy blush was crawling up his face.

"Thanks," he said, diverted. Katara felt that her ice breaker turned out to be rather counterproductive. Whatever Zuko had been preparing to say was further from the surface than ever now. Katara decided to just talk until he was comfortable enough to say what he needed to say.

"I want to thank you again for stopping that lightening from hitting me," she said.

"It was nothing—I had to do it."

"Because we are friends, right?" she asked. Her heart thumped a little faster at the direct question, but she wanted to hear it from his mouth. If he cared for her at all, she needed to know before she left…

"Friends?" he said, his tone hinting that it was a question. "Yeah, friends; we're friends. Actually, I think you are my best friend—not counting Uncle anyway."

Katara stopped walking. "Me?" she asked. She could hardly find the nerve to talk to him about idle things yet she was his closest friend? The thought broke her heart a little, because she knew it was true. Sokka trusted him, but that didn't mean he had to like him or talk to him at all. Aang liked everybody, but Zuko tended to avoid the avatar's happy-go-lucky attitude whenever he could, and Toph was always with Aang. That did leave Katara as the only one to hang out with Zuko. She'd never realized.

"Yeah, you," Zuko said with a rare smile on his face. "Is that so hard to believe?"

Katara shook her head. "No, actually…I've just never thought of it like that."

Zuko laughed and shrugged. "Well when you get hit by lightening a lot of things become clear. I know that I have it in me to always do what is right. I know that I have some real friends in this world; and I know that," he paused. Then his words came in kind of a rush. "I know I love you."

Katara was so shocked she couldn't even form words.

"I mean, I know I've liked you for a long time now, but when I saw Azula send that lightening your way, I suddenly knew that it wasn't just a crush. If I lost your friendship, I don't know what I would do, and, well…isn't that what love is? I can't live without you Katara."

"Wait, just—wait." Katara said. She found a seat on a boulder among some fire-lilies. Zuko stayed planted where he stood, pale horror slowly crawling up his face. Katara spoke before he could get the wrong idea.

"Zuko, you've no idea—" Her voice caught. She started over. "I've liked you for a long time too, but I was afraid."

"You have?" he asked, lighting up like a lantern. He came to her, knelt before her. "I was hoping."

"Zuko," Katara said weakly. "I don't know what to say…"

"You don't have to say anything."

"When I saw you take that bolt for me, it was like my wildest dreams had come true. I didn't even know I wanted you until I thought I could never have you…"

"Katara," he said softly. He lifted her dark hand to his pale lips and pressed a warm kiss against her knuckles. Butterflies filled her. She bit her lip. His golden brown eyes looked soft and hard at the same time, two different emotions crashing behind them; love and courage. Katara understood then how difficult it was for him to show his emotions like this. He expected her to hurt him any second; it was all he knew out of life.

She caressed his face, traced a line in his scar with her thumb. He closed his eyes, his breath leaving his body with a light shudder. She smiled. "Who would have thought it? Water and Fire…"

He smiled too and shook his head, his hands dropping to her knees. "It sounds so crazy."

"It feels a little crazy." Katara admitted. "Like a jump no one thinks you can make."

"Until you do and prove them wrong," Zuko said. She smiled. She couldn't concentrate on anything beyond his hands and the warmth they were spreading up her legs from where they were on her knees under her hands.

"…so let's do it." Zuko said, "Let's prove them wrong."

Katara nodded, her eyes shining. Zuko raised high enough to land a kiss on her mouth and then lifted her to her feet by the elbows in order to kiss her more deeply. Katara felt something in her chest spark. For the first time in her life, she wasn't trapped in her head worrying about doing the right thing, because she didn't have to worry about this, she _knew_; she could feel it; this was right. The longer the kiss went on the more the spark grew until it was a roaring wild fire spreading out of sight, burning her old thoughts to the ground.

Zuko broke the kiss, panting slightly. It had stolen his breath. His arms were bracing her back, holding her up; her arms were wrapped around his neck, her knees weak. Their bodies were pressed against each other completely. He leaned his forehead against hers, the tip of his sharp nose bumping against her button one.

His kiss had tasted like tea. Hers like a piece of fire peppermint candy from one of the venders in the town square. Now they both enjoyed the taste of peppermint tea. The strength in Katara's legs slowly returned and she stood. Zuko released his hold and allowed his hands to move down her waist. They rested on her hips. She caressed both sides on his face.

"It feels so strange, doesn't it?" she asked with a giddy laugh, "Not having a world to save?"

He laughed. "The world will always need saving." He said, repeating something Uncle Iroh had told him just the other day, "The day we stop trying to save it is the day it's lost. But it is nice not to have a ticking clock for a change."

Katara smiled. "Exactly; we have all the time we need."

Zuko nodded without breaking the contact between their foreheads. Then he took a deep breath and released it into her hair. "I wish I could spend all day with you and forget my duties as Fire Lord."

Katara smiled into his shoulder. "Don't say that because of me. I'm not worth it."

"Of course you are." Zuko said. His lips left butterfly kisses along her jaw to her lips.

Katara broke the kiss when she heard her brother call for her. An irrational fear closed around her stomach—the tantalizing child's instinct to run and hide before getting caught doing something naughty. Katara pulled out of Zuko's hold and bid him silently to stay where he was. Zuko obeyed when he heard Sokka call a second time, this time with frustration in his voice.

Zuko laughed, his heart suddenly racing at the thought of being caught by her brother. Katara laughed too, giddy with the idea of having a secret like this. It felt so liberating. She could fly away with the power of keeping a secret like Zuko.

"Katara, seriously, where are you? The whole team's waiting for you!" Sokka cried, rounding the corner.

Her brother was surprised to find her there, within earshot after all. He stopped and looked between the pair suspiciously. Katara played it cool, as if they had only been talking about the weather they would hit on the journey. Zuko's usual mask of stoic boredom fell right back into place, but because she knew it was there, Katara could see a glimmer in his eyes.

Sokka shrugged away the suspicion and asked lightly, "Saying goodbye? Time to go, Katara."

Katara didn't answer. Her dark blue eyes widened as they flew to Zuko. She didn't want to leave, but she couldn't object and keep her secret too. Zuko remained completely passively; he might have mastered the habit of showing his feelings to Katara, but he would need a lot more practice before he put himself out there with anyone else present. Katara found herself with the reigns; she could do as she wanted.

She wanted Zuko.

She wanted home.

She wanted a secret to keep as her own.

Katara nodded. "Coming—I want to say goodbye to Iroh first."

Sokka nodded and with a final wave to the new Fire Lord, he disappeared back around the corner. Katara returned to Zuko for one final kiss. "Say goodbye to your uncle for me."

He grinned, but a question burned in his eyes. She bumped her nose against his, her lips brushing a hairs breath from his mouth in a teasing manner. "What it is?"

Zuko swallowed; his Adams Apple bobbing. One side of his mouth lifted in a shy smile. "You could stay here." He suggested. Katara blinked. She could. Her heart began pounding. She could stay. When she looked into his golden brown gaze she saw again that hard light of courage burning there and it gave her courage—courage to ask herself What If.

What if she did stay?

She would be with Zuko. They would see each other everyday and he would talk to her like he could talk to no one else and he would kiss her and he would make her laugh. They would get married; have children. She would Lady Katara, Fire Lord Zuko's wife.

Fire Lord Zuko's wife.

The courage fizzled and died like a match head. Katara's heart began racing in a new way, fueled by a fear that struck as suddenly as a snake. She couldn't marry a Fire Lord; she couldn't become co-responsible for running an entire nation. Her children wouldn't be just children, they would be heirs.

"I can't," she said breathlessly; somehow the fear had stolen that too. She could hardly breathe imagining the life behind palace walls. Trapped. She shook her head and moved away from Zuko, who stood in shock.

"Why not?" he asked, "I thought you wanted to be with me; I can't go to the South Pole."

"I—I know," Katara said. "I wasn't thinking—I can't do this, Zuko."

The full scale of what she was saying finally hit him. His face crumpled like a paper swan. His scar crinkled as it did in the old days, when he used to look at her and her friends in anger and hatred, but his golden brown eyes weren't loathing—the courageous glint was gone. There was only shadow and humiliation: hurt.

Katara saw it all in his face. He had trusted her with his feelings and she had proved to be as unfeeling as the rest of the people in his world. She didn't see his eyes grow cold for the blur of tears that welled in her own.

"I'm so sorry!" She said, going to him. He stepped away. She stopped, stung. She crossed her arms, sniffed. "Zuko—"

"No." He said darkly. "You're right. I shouldn't have asked."

With a sweep of his Fire Lord robe, he was gone. She stood alone in the courtyard garden. A hot tear dripped from her jaw and landed with a splash on the flagstone under her feet. Katara looked at the dark stain beside her toe. It was shaped like a tiny sun. She dragged the toe of her shoe through it. It became a comet. Three more suns splashed into place beside it.

"Katara!" Toph called. The earth bender had pitched her voice just loud enough to reach the water bender where she stood. Toph knew Katara was there, she could sense the vibrations even from her tear drops. Katara reigned in her tears and answered in as steady a voice as she could. "Coming."

"Are you okay?" Toph asked when Katara met the girl on the walk. Katara knew better than to lie to Toph about this. She sniffed. "I'm just so happy to be going home." She said. "For it to be over, you know?"

Toph smiled. "Me too. I've had enough excitement for a while. You promise the South Pole is boring?"

"Oh, totally," Katara said. "And dry too. The air is too cold to hold moisture; it freezes everything instantly. It's so cold you don't even feel the cold."

"Cool." Toph said. Katara sniffed, dried her face, and put on a smile before she faced her brother. When Sokka looked her in the eye as they departed, Katara feared for a moment that he knew she wasn't telling something, but he never asked, or orchestrated an opportunity for them to be alone together for her to spill the beans. It took several days, nearly a full week, before Katara could rest easily in the knowledge that Sokka really didn't know she was hiding something from him.

It felt wrong. It felt like cheating. Part of the tribe's community was their common well of knowledge; everyone knew everyone else's business not for gossip topics but simply to share in all that was life. Until Prince Zuko joined their cause, Katara had never been in love, but she had never felt the difference, because she had grown up on stories of the older girls in the village finding soul mates in the fine warriors going off to battle. Katara knew love backwards and forwards, and could see it coming from a mile away because there was a story for each way of love back home, but somehow this had taken her by surprise; maybe because she'd never heard a story about a fire love.

She wanted to share this with Sokka, but she loved the freedom of the secret as well. She met herself half-way; if Sokka asked, she would tell.

Sokka was so wrapped up in Suki that he didn't even know the days of the week anymore.

Zuko was still her secret to keep.

**AN: Leave a review before you go on to the next section please, even if it's just pointing out a typo**


	2. Chapter 2

**A Wild Fire**

The Avatar visited the Fire Nation palace once a year, every summer. This time, he was bringing his new wife. Fire Lord Zuko watched the flying bison circle ahead to come in for a landing. He waved a hand, telling his subordinates to back off, give him and his friends a bit of privacy as they greeted one another.

Aang glided down from the bison, landing on his feet in front of Zuko. At eighteen, Aang was at Zuko's eye level now. He extended a hand, which Zuko clasped and then they pulled each other into a tight hug. "It's good to see you, Aang."

"Good to see you, too, Zuko." Aang said. "Boy have I got a whopping good Bah Sing Se story to tell you this time."

Zuko laughed, "Why is it that every time you visit that palace, you manage to turn that town upside down?"

"It's that mail-shoot," A gentle voice cut in, "I told them to have it removed whenever Aang is coming, but they won't listen and Aang _always_ has to talk a few people into going down it with him. Hello, Zuko, how have you been?" She tacked the greeting onto the end of her words without taking a breath, as if she needed momentum to begin the pleasantries or else she could never start them.

Katara was more beautiful than the last time Zuko had seen her. Her eyes, calm like a shaded lake, seemed deeper, full of more secrets. "It's good to see you, Katara." He said before answering her question with a lie, "I've been well."

"That's good." She said.

Zuko wanted to dive into her eyes and find those secrets. He wanted to drown in them, but saved himself by averting his eyes as he spoke next to Aang, "So how about you tell me that Ba Sing Se story over some tea?"

This room had once been a solemn place, a place full of fear and fire and the awesome presence of the most evil man alive. But Zuko's father was in prison now, harmless and dying slowly. This room was transformed into a colorful, lively place, and at the moment, it was full of mirth. The Fire Lord and his visitors were roaring with laughter as Aang recounted the tale of his last visit to the Earth kingdom palace.

Aang finally found his breath and wiped away a tear, "I wish you could have been there."

Zuko made a sound of agreement, not trusting his words to sound sincere. He had been invited to Ba Sing Se, for the wedding, but hadn't been able to bring himself to go. He hadn't wanted to see Katara marry another man, let alone Aang, whom he couldn't even bring himself to hate.

He didn't want to see Aang place a delicate kiss on her lips before leaving the table, either. The avatar darted off to retrieve something Sokka had sent for the young Fire Lord. Zuko and Katara were left alone at the tea table. She looked into her tea as if she could read the leaves that were not yet uncovered in the bottom.

Zuko cleared his throat, "He's a lucky man." He said.

"He's a good man." She said, nodding.

"He really loves you." Zuko said.

"Can we stop talking about this?" Katara asked, putting her tea cup down with enough force for it to slosh out everywhere. Zuko allowed a laugh. "Why not? What's wrong with talking about how much you and your husband love each other?"

"Nothing, expect this isn't that. This is that thing you do."

"What thing?"

"That thing where you torture yourself like you deserve it."

Zuko made no reply, but stood from the table. He turned to go, then paused and said to her over his shoulder in a soft voice, "I'm no stranger to torture, Katara. I don't want to become a stranger to you, so I will endure what I must."

The stone was cool beneath his bare feet. The water of the pond was calm, quiet, waiting for him, silently inviting him in for the swim. Birds sang in the early morning and the sun's young light chased away the fog that hung in the branches of the cherry trees. The wind was chilly, raising chill bumps across his bare chest. The water would be even colder. He drew a deep breath, preparing to dive.

Noise interrupted the silence and several men bustled into the garden.

"Not now," The Fire Lord said as his consultants crowded around him.

"But, Majesty, we only wish to remind you that your wife begins her cycle today."

Zuko sighed and returned to trying to meditate. His consultants didn't catch on to his passive hint to leave him in peace. Instead, they continued,

"We're here to press on you again the importance of conceiving an heir as fast as possible."

"Yes. I haven't forgotten the thousand other times you've told me." He grumbled and then wasted no more time. He dove into the water.

The frigid temperature seemed to amputate him from the world, slice it all away, detach him from the pressures of ruling a nation, from not being loved by his wife, from needing an heir, from loving a woman he could never have. It all broke away as the water wrapped around him, sank its chilling fangs down to his bones.

Sinking to the bottom, he let himself hang suspended in the water. Here he didn't need to look at anyone, he didn't need to talk to or lead anyone. He didn't even need to stand on his own two feet, or carry his own weight; the water did all of that for him. Here he didn't worry about what the next right thing to do was. This was his favorite place in the whole entire world.

_Perhaps if you didn't spend so much time splashing around in that pond you'd be a stronger fire bender._

Azula's demented voice spoke the words to him out of his memory, bypassing all of his armor, all of his secret defenses to stab into the throbbing heart of all of his insecurities. Though she was locked up far away, his sister's twisted cruelty still got to him from time to time. She still managed to make him feel inferior even from her prison cell. He used to think that if only she'd die, he would be free. But she was still there in his mind, she was still making him doubt.

He pushed the thought of his sister, and that of his father as well, away. He knew better than to listen to words of the past. He knew he'd already proven both his father and his sister wrong long ago. He knew that he made his mother and his uncle proud every day. That was all he needed. He dwelled on this, made it his mantra as he sat there on the bottom on the pond.

It wasn't long before he needed air, at which point he pushed off from the ground and resurfaced, dragging in a satisfying breath of morning air, flinging his hair out of his eyes. He climbed out of the pond. Usually he swam for much longer, but today, he couldn't find solace in its depths. He had a feeling that he wouldn't find solace there for the rest of the summer.

Aang repositioned a tile on the board and Zuko groaned, "Is it among your Avatar powers to be unbeatable at this game?"

"Apparently," Aang laughed, collecting his winnings. To make it interesting, they had decided to play for money.

Zuko huffed, "Well, I hope some day I find something I can beat you at."

"Good Luck."

"You know, I remember traveling around the world trying to kill a _humble_ Avatar."

Aang shrugged, "The fate of the world doesn't rest in my hands any more. I feel a lot more conceited without that kind of weight weighing me down."

Zuko chuckled, rearranging the tiles back to start. "It's my own fault that I'm no good at this game, I should have practiced with Uncle more."

Aang stood and stretched, "No more tonight. I'm turning in."

"So early?" Zuko asked noting that the sun wasn't even down yet.

"I want to get an early start in the morning." Aang replied, crossing the room to kiss Katara goodnight.

"Where?"

"The Boiling Rock." He said. "I want to visit your father."

Zuko laughed out right. "Why?"

Aang shrugged, "I want to ask him if he's learned anything in his time alone."

"You mean you seek his forgiveness." Zuko said wisely.

"Yes." Aang admitted. Zuko felt sympathy for his friend. "I'm afraid you won't find it."

"Have you seen him lately?"

"Not since I made him tell me where he was keeping my mother."

"That's been five years."

"He's going to need longer than that to realize his crimes." Zuko said, knowing his father all too well. "I assure you, he still hates you, me, all of us."

"You can't know that, not if you've not been to see him." Aang said, "I need to go. Maybe something I say will help him."

Zuko knew he wouldn't be able to change his friend's mind. Aang slipped away to the rooms he shared with Katara. His wife remained in her window seat, looking out at the sun as it sank toward the horizon.

"I usually go for a walk as the sun sets. Care to join me?" Zuko asked.

He could see it in her face, the internal battle. Finally she smiled up at him and stood, "Okay."

The night air was cool, chilling. They walked in step, down a garden path that seemed to be headed right for the place the sun touched the mountains in the distance. They talked about Sokka, Suki and their new baby girl.

"Do you plan to have children some day?" Zuko asked.

"Of course," Katara said. "It's a natural part of life to have children, to pass on your blood and your knowledge."

"I suppose, but aren't you afraid that your kid might end up having nothing but the worst parts of you?"

Katara stopped walking and Zuko added, "Not that you have any worst parts at all, but—"

"Is that why you don't have children yet?" Katara asked. "Are you afraid they'll be bad like your father and sister, like you used to be?"

"Maybe," He admitted, "I mean it's all in my blood, right?"

"You are good. You're uncle was good. Your mother was good. Your great grandfather was good. Azula and Ozia were just a few bad apples in a bunch of good ones."

"Sometimes I think Uncle was the only good one, and that I only went good out of…"

"Out of what?" Her voice was sharp. Zuko began walking again and finished his sentence in a single word, "Fear."

Katara hurried to fall back into step with him, "You think you went good out of cowardice? You think joining us and overthrowing your father was an act of weakness?"

"No, of course not. I mean, I just—only sometimes, it all starts getting to me and I start hearing their voices again, telling me how weak, how pathetic I am."

"You aren't weak or pathetic."

"It's just a fleeting thought I have sometimes, a worry, really, a doubt."

"The remaining seeds of the cruelty your family pounded into you." Katara said. "Get rid of it."

He lifted one side of his mouth, "I will, it'll just take time. This is it." He stuck the last words on the end of his others, pausing at the same pond he'd swam in the day before. The fire of the setting sun danced on the water's surface.

"What?" Katara asked.

"The sun reflects on the water here. I never watch the sun set, I always watch its reflection here instead."

Katara studied the sunlight on the water. It was pretty, peaceful. Somehow, it reminded her of the harmony in the world. If fire and water could hold one another in such beauty, then anything was possible.

She remembered the day Zuko had said he loved her, had kissed her, had asked her to stay here with him, to marry him. Her blood raced through her veins and she was aware her proximity to Zuko. He was standing a few feet from her, close but too far away; she could reach out and touch him if she wanted to. And she wanted to.

He was staring at the water, looking calm, serene even. One question burned in her mind. _If he loved her so much, why did he marry Mae so quickly after she refused him?_

Katara woke early the next morning to see Aang off. She loved him for trying to bring peace to the man who caused so much pain, but like Zuko, she felt it was a lost cause. Aang kissed her sweetly, wafted up onto Appa and flew away. Katara watched him go for a moment before turning and ambling along a walkway. The overhang of this path was held up by arches. The arches faced the east, the ocean and the rising sun.

She pondered the life that lay ahead of her as she wandered around the palace yards. Aang was good, sweet, gentle. He made her laugh.

So why didn't he consume her the way Zuko did?

Zuko excited her just by looking at her. She thought of him first when she had a story to share with someone. She felt she could tell him things she couldn't tell anyone else. She loved his laugh, the way he spoke quietly when he was being serious, the way he listened, the way he trusted her.

She couldn't bring herself to regret marrying Aang. He was a dear friend, a best friend. He loved her and she loved him.

Was it possible to love two men at once?

The sound of a loud splash broke the silence of the morning. Curious, Katara circled around a hedge and found herself at the pond Zuko said he liked to watch the sun set in. She could tell by the surface of the water that someone had just dived in. The shoes and a robe on the rocks told her who it was. Katara went to the edge of the water and looked in.

The way the pond was built, the water was several feet deep right up to the edge of the rocks. She could see a pale blur sitting on the bottom. She sat on the rocks and waited for him to resurface. When he did, he was facing the waterfall and didn't see her. He lay back and floated on his back with his eyes closed. Katara remained silent, watching him float.

Maybe it was just about the sex. The thought came to Katara as she watched him. It didn't seem like a completely ridiculous idea. After all, Zuko represented a kind of power and fierce passion that Aang would never have in his gentle nature. It was Zuko's energy that attracted her to him in the first place, during their fighting practices. It was her first taste of true attraction, her first thirst for that kind of connection.

And it was never quenched.

_Perhaps that was all it was_. She thought, wildly, somewhat desperately. This idea was beginning to take on the shades of an excuse, but she was too far gone to see it that way. _Perhaps it could be solved, this madness, in a single night_!

The fact that she was married only increased her certainty; after all, she wasn't a virgin anymore and therefore no longer had anything to guard. As far as cheating went she just didn't see it that way. It would be just once, and she would be doing it for Aang, in the long run. She would be able to make him twice as happy if she could get rid of these feelings once and for all.

In the pool, Zuko pulled in a big breath and dove again, never looking over his shoulder, never seeing her. The surface of the water rippled and grew calm. _That could be my life._ She thought. Her current plans might cause some ripples, but they would fade and blissful serenity would follow.

Her mind was made up. She stood, undid her belt and slipped out of her robes silently. It was cold in the morning air, standing there in just her underclothes. She steeled herself and then eased into the water. She found it surprisingly warmer than she suspected, but then, there was a heater sitting in the middle of it.

The sounds of the waterfall hid the little sound she did make as she entered the pool. Underwater, she opened her eyes and found the pale blur at the bottom that was Zuko. She let out a stream of bubbles as she went to him. When she reached him, she put her hands over his eyes.

Zuko flinched violently when cool hands closed over his eyes. A plume of bubbles erupted from him as he whirled around. It was dark in the water, the only light came from above and the morning was young enough for that not to be a lot, but he could see the silhouette of his visitor: lovely curves, a mane of long dark hair.

They surfaced. Zuko tossed his hair from his eyes, Katara let hers hang plastered to either side of her face. She was smiling at him.

"What are you doing here?" He asked.

"I felt like a swim." She said. "Am I intruding?"

"No." He said, "But—"_Should we?_ He didn't ask it out loud. He didn't even really know what it meant. That wasn't true, he knew what it meant, holy hell did he know what it meant, but he didn't know if it was the relevant question. He didn't know if she was asking the same thing.

"Relax, Zuko." She said, "I know what I'm doing."

Zuko really didn't know what _that_ meant, but he liked it all the same. In fact, he liked everything there was about Soaking Wet And Barely Clothed Katara: He obeyed her order, but made sure to keep his distance, treading out of arm's reach from her nonetheless. He _must_ be in control.

"Zuko," She said, and she sounded breathless. In a graceful breast stroke, she was near him again. "Do you remember when we used to fight side by side?"

He never had much in the way of control anyway; he kissed her.

Behind the waterfall, between the curtain of water and the rocks it cascaded from, was space enough for two people. Here, water and fire collided in harmony that held in it the beauty of sunlight on water, of shady lakes, of dancing fire, and of the sun and the moon when they shared the sky.

Katara's back was to the rocks, Zuko's hands were on her bare thighs, his mouth was covering hers. In his touch, she could sense his need for her embrace. She briefly wondered, at the beginning, how long it'd been since he'd been with his wife, but then nothing else mattered. Zuko was with Katara now. He should have always been with her. She should have said she'd marry him. Why in all the worlds would she refuse this magnificent man who loved her so intensely?

Any moment they could be caught, but that didn't matter. Years of hidden feelings were being shared in soft words said beneath the sound of the pounding water. Zuko's love was a force barely in his control, like his fire bending, like his sense of honor, like his hate, like his pain. Zuko was always on the edge of them if not lost in them. But right now he was lost in her, and she in him, and none of it mattered because they were together.

He was supposed to feel guilty. A good man would feel guilt. An honorable man would despise himself for his weak actions. But how could surrender as sweet as this be a bad thing? Surely this kind of surrender meant strength, because this kind of surrender had too many dangerous and torturous risks for a weak man to undertake.  
They dressed before climbing out of the water. Zuko went first and then helped her out. She twisted her hair to get the water out; then she put back on her outer clothes. No matter how badly he wanted to, he couldn't regret it. Although Aang was his best friend—he would just have to never know. That way no one got hurt.

Zuko told himself that it was being above the water in the breeze of the morning that was making him start to shiver. He didn't do his Dragon Breath, so as to have an excuse for the trembling. He was going to tell her the truth and look her in the eye as he said it, she deserved a courageous man.

"I'm not sorry."

"Why did you marry her?" Katara said in response. Zuko took a step back, surprised by the suddenly and brutally honest question.

"Well," He finally said, "I didn't see what the point was in waiting, when the only girl that mattered didn't want me. All the other girls were the same, and always would be. I just got it over with, picked one I felt I could trust."

Silence. Zuko shook out his hair and returned it to its tie; put his feet in his sandals. Katara broke the quiet.

"I-I ruined our lives, didn't I?" she asked.

"No!" Zuko pulled her to him, held her tightly. She pulled away after a moment, gently. He let her go; their time of embraces was over. She stood, looking down sadly.

"I don't mean to confuse you." Zuko said softly when she closed her eyes.

"I'm not confused." She said. She didn't even convince herself. She looked down at her feet, avoiding eye contact.

"Katara," Zuko said, "Aang loves you, has always loved you, will always love you. You made the right choice. I would have let you down, eventually."

"Stop it." Katara said. He obeyed. She continued, "I knew what I was doing."

Zuko recalled (it had all went hazy about the time they found the space behind the falls) that it was Katara who entered the pool half-dressed and uninvited, Katara who assured him, who kissed him back with fierce determination.

"What _were_ you doing?" He asked.

She was silent for a moment, then she lifted her chin, met his eye with resolve. "I was trying to rid myself of you." That hurt. To hell with battling a power-crazed father and a psycho sister. This was the stuff that truly killed a man.

Zuko had no idea what to say.

Katara's hand went to her forehead and she suddenly sank to the rocks with a sob, "I think I just made it worse!"

Zuko went to his knees in front of her. "Say the word and I will come up with some kind of excuse—_any_ kind of excuse for you and Aang to leave."

"What?" There she was, the wild, angry girl ready to kick fire-nation ass. "You want me gone so quickly?"

"Only because I thought that's what you were saying!" Zuko said quickly. "I thought you were saying that it's too hard for you to be around me. I don't want to distress you Katara! I want you to be happy!"

She put her forehead on her knees. "I'll never be happy if I cut you out of my life." She said it so softly that it was almost lost beneath the sounds of the water.

Zuko stood. "I never should have touched you!" His voice was thin, wavered. "I've made things worse. I'm sorry. I—"

"You're doing it again!" Katara cut in sharply. "It's _my_ fault! It was all _my_ idea!"

Zuko double-looked her, his eyebrows raised, "It was premeditated?"

Katara looked ashamed. "I thought it would help me get over you. I thought I could move on."

There was silence. Zuko paced back and forth for a moment and then stopped before her and spoke up, "And so we will."

Katara looked up at him with her eyebrows together. "We will?"

"Neither of us want to hurt Aang, neither of us want the hurt of losing each other's company. Neither of us want to pine after someone we can't have." He pressed his palms together in front of him, complete resolve in his posture and expression. "We will move on."

"Can we?" Katara asked. She wanted to, but she didn't. She longed for it, but she loved him so.

"We must." He said.

"Yes." She said, catching on. If they said it enough they could do it. With sheer will power, they could fall out of love, put out the wild fire. She stood, and matched his stance.

"We can." She said. Then together, they reiterated,

"We will."

Aang returned, defeated. Ozai had been far less guilt-ridden and ready to forgive and be forgiven than Aang would have liked. In fact, he wasn't at all. He was still angry, still full of hatred, still vowing revenge. The only change was that now the anger had turned to madness.

It was early. Aang was expecting to find Katara still in bed. When she wasn't there, he went roaming the palace and its grounds for her. She wasn't in the hedge maze, she wasn't at the sea shore, and she wasn't in the rock garden. He recalled a magnificent garden pond in the central garden, Zuko's private garden. Perhaps she was there, water bending.

Sure enough, she was. And she wasn't alone.

She and Zuko stood right beside the pond, drenched and facing one another with their palms pressed as if in prayer and their stance and posture strong. Aang laughed, "Not dueling are we?" He asked.

Zuko whirled to face him. "Aang! You're back so soon?"

"A lost cause," He replied, deflated.

"Oh, darling." Katara cried, going to him and taking his hands, "I'm so sorry."

Zuko looked away, but then squared his shoulders and looked back. Aang sighed, a great puff of air that stirred everyone's clothing. "Perhaps next year."

Katara kissed him, a quick peck on the lips, and gave him a smile, "That's what I love about you; your heart is so big you hurt for even the evilest of men."

"If only I were half the man you are." Zuko said. The flattery was true, all if it, but its presence was due to the intensely obvious-now-that-he-was-actually-there fact that they had both deeply betrayed Aang.

"Thanks." Aang said. "I love you, Katara. And Zuko, I'm honored by your friendship."

"How about next time we go with you to see Ozai?" Katara asked. "Maybe with all of us trying, we can help him see the light."

"Yeah, maybe," Aang said, draping an arm around his wife's shoulders as they turned to head back inside.

"We can." Zuko said, catching Katara's eyes.

"We will." She said.

Zuko talked to himself in inner monologue a lot after what happened. Usually it was some kind of a mental bitch slap to pull him out of it. For the rest of the summer after it happened, his inner monologue on any given day sounded like this:

**Morning**

_Dammit._

_There she is. She looks good._

... _Suck it up! It doesn't matter how you feel. All that matters is that this is want she wants! This is how she will be happy!_...

…_Look at that jackass—No. stop being petty. He is your friend. He is a good man…_

…_You could never make her as happy and carefree as he can. He's such a better man than you will ever be_…

…_You will be trapping her in a life of duty to a kingdom she spent most of her life despising_…

…_God, she smells good_…

…_You have too much to do anyway, you would never be able to give her as much time as she deserves_…

…_She's happy. Look at her. She's so happy. You're doing the right thing for her_…

…_You can't do that. Stop thinking about it…_

…_You told her you wouldn't touch her like that again, you idiot…_

…_don't touch her. She doesn't want you to touch her!..._

…_This is for the best…_

**Afternoon**

_…Maybe I'll go for another swim—no! stop thinking about that!_

_…She's so cute when she eats…_

_…I bet that speck of sauce on her lips tastes good—What in the hell? Stop it!..._

_…There. See? You would never have said that kind of thing to her, and look how happy it made her!..._

_…Wow. It truly is impossible to hate him..._

_…If he finds out what you did, it'll kill him…_

_…She never looks at me like that. She's not lying. She does love him…_

_…She wants to touch you, step out of reach…_

_…you're an idiot. You're an idiot. You're an idiot…_

_…I'm not sorry that I feel this way…_

**Evening**

_…You see? This is completely possible. You can both get over this. You both will get over this…_

_…You can. You will…_

_…You shouldn't have touched her like that! Leave, now. Don't come back for hours…_

_…Listen up. You have already given her all that you have, but it's not enough. She needs more. Only Aang can give that to her. You have to stop thinking like this. You have to fall out of love with her. You have to. You have to. You won't make her this happy…_

_…What the fuck did I just say to you? Stop it._

_…You've had her. It was wonderful. It was the best you ever had. That's enough. That's it. That's all you need. What purpose would be served in doing it again—besides the obvious- other than destroying her marriage and Aang's trust in you, and your friendship? You would much rather have their friendship, right? So just be thankful you had that time with her and move on. If you don't, so help me, you will die of this. You know it's true. Move the fuck on._

**Night**

…_Don't think about what they're doing. It's none of your business…_

_…kill me…_

…_Of course he would do that. SHE'S HIS BRIDE, you jackass!_

_…If you died, you wouldn't have to feel like this—BUT IF YOU DIED YOU COULDN'T FEEL HER IN YOUR HEART ANYMORE!_

_…She's happy…_

_…They probably aren't…_

_…They probably are…_

_…She's happy, so what does it matter?_

_…Wait? How do you know if she's happy or not?_

_…She is. She is. She's happy. Stop it. She's happy. She would never live with herself if she broke Aang's heart, which is what convincing her to come to bed with you will do, because he will eventually find out…_

_…You don't need her. You have a wife of your own. Go find your wife._

_…Katara…_

_…Dammit_…

After it happened, Katara threw herself into being married to Aang. He was sweet, tender, loved her with all of his heart, and would never hurt her. He would never betray her as she did him. Guilt-ridden, she often slipped away into shadows to shed a few tears of heartbreak.

Something had to be wrong with her; how could she love two men at once?

One she loved violently, one she loved deeply.

She was married to the second and so it was that one, and that one alone, that she ever let herself be alone with.

Aang was the one she belonged with; he represented the life she wanted. He needed her. She made him happy, which made her happy. That was all she needed.

When she was with him in their bed, she didn't need waterfalls or secrecy, or, or whatever else she might find with Zuko. She could live without that. Aang satisfied her in his own way.

One truth hid itself away in Katara's heart, a truth which she felt, but never acknowledged:

_Aang was the safe choice, he was the easier road._

Years passed. In them, Zuko busied himself with running a nation, negotiating with other world leaders in order to keep harmony in the lands. Often he was too busy to even remember his own middle name, Lee, let alone think about women, or his wife, or the woman who wasn't his wife.

Every summer, without fail, the Avatar came to stay at the Fire Nation Palace, having spent spring in the Earth Kingdom, winter in the Poles, and fall rebuilding the nomadic Wind Tribes and the Air-Bender population with the help of his air-bending flying bison and an ancient lion turtle that he'd befriended. He did this by finding non-benders who wanted to be benders and training them after the lion turtle granted them the ability.

Zuko knew extremely well what Aang was up to because he was usually always helping him do the things he was doing. In fact, he saw much more of his bald and blue-tattooed friend than he did of his—other friend. She was just his other friend.

So, like he always did, the Avatar arrived at Zuko's palace on the first day of summer. And, like he always did, he brought his wife with him.

For three summers, three visits, Zuko and Katara did as they promised; they pretended to be out of love with each other. The first new summer after it happened, Katara was round in the middle—five months pregnant with Aang's child.

The next summer, a baby girl named Kiki who had Aang's eyes was toddling along after her mother wherever she went. Zuko had never spent any time around extremely small children before that summer, and learned a lot; like that no one smiles at a man who speaks harshly to a small child who won't stop crying.

Especially the mother.

The third summer Sokka came with them, bringing Suki and their daughter Tanaka. That summer was filled with the shrieks of Tanaka and Kiki playing spinning, jumping, and chasing games with Sokka and Aang. It reminded Zuko of his childhood before his father became Fire Lord, when his mother was always there and smiling at him.

He had, through smooth talking and endless assurances, managed to convince his advisors that he needn't father a child so soon—he had too much on his plate with helping the avatar rebuild the world to be a good father. Therefore, they had long since stopped reminding him of Mae's cycles, of stressing to him the importance of an heir.

But that summer with Tanaka and Kiki instilled in him a want for a child. Not for the purposes of having an heir for the kingdom, but just because he wouldn't mind having a daughter who adored him in the way that both Tanaka and Kiki adored Sokka and Aang. He could name her Ursa, after his mother, and maybe she would have his eyes and Mae's bold beauty, and he could be the kind of father Uncle Iroh was.

However, his efforts went unrewarded. A year passed and Mae still didn't have a child. What was more, she was growing even more distant from him, seemed displeased by him, and often spent all of her time in whatever part of the palace that Zuko wasn't in.

Appa was crowded for the flight into the Fire Nation this year. The passengers included Katara, Aang, and Kiki, and Sokka, Suki and Tanaka, plus Toph who decided she wouldn't mind spending a summer relaxing in Zuko's ridiculously luxurious palace after months of helping rebuild an entire city from the ground up—literally.

Katara had very nearly opted to go back home for the summer—Kiki was happiest there, with her grandfather and the other children of the village. Not to mention, it would mean she wouldn't have to spend three months trying not to look at one particular fire lord.

It had been three years since that morning in the pond, but she could remember it like it was yesterday if she let herself. It frightened her that carrying, birthing, and raising Aang's daughter didn't lessen her feelings for the scarred-but-smiling Fire Lord who was standing atop the polished marble steps of his palace with advisors flanking him left and right.

Aang, who was nine days into growing out his hair and beard in an attempt to look older ever since someone mistook him, in all of his twenty-one years, to be fifteen, helped Katara down. Then he allowed Kiki to jump down onto his shoulders and just hang out there while everyone else dismounted from the yawning beast.

From his place above them, Zuko greeted the Avatar loudly and with a big smile—as the Fire Lord greeting the savior of the land in the name of his nation. Then he ordered his men to disperse, descended the steps, and greeted him with a tight hug and a laugh, like a friend.

Hugs went all around. Katara was last. He held his arms open to her, a big smile crinkling his scar, "Katara, you haven't changed a bit." He said and then scooped her up in a brief but tight hug. It was so common-place, so similar to the way he'd greeted Suki and Toph and the children, that Katara's heart broke a little.

_Perhaps he has succeeded where you have failed._ She pushed that thought away, looked pointedly at her beautiful daughter, whom she loved so much sometimes she thought she would die, and kissed her, reminded herself whose eyes she had.

"Mom!" Kiki cried, squirming out of her hold and then bolting after her cousin, who was doing cartwheels in the grass. Zuko smirked at her, "Kids." He said with a shrug.

_He is so totally out of love with you_.

Zuko helped his friends settle in and then excused himself. Once alone, he released a breath and collapsed on the wall. His job required he put on a face every now and then, act however the situation demanded.

He'd never acted so hard as he had just then.

He wasn't the happy, smiling, laughing, care-free man who welcomed his friends so warmly. He was miserable, heart broken, worn down from an entire year of being rejected time-and-time-again by his wife.

Sokka noticed his sister's sudden down-in-the-dumps attitude. He jabbed an elbow into her side, "Hey, are you okay?"

Her first instinct was to lie, to fake happiness, and assure him she was fine. But then she realized that Sokka wouldn't buy that. She gave him an excuse, "I just miss home."

"This living all over the world thing has finally lost its novelty, huh?" He asked.

"It's tiring."

"Tell me about it—Suki has already fallen asleep—" He jabbed a thumb toward the open door of the rooms he shared with his family. Through it, they could see Suki lying with her eyes closed on the bed. "She's so beautiful when she sleeps." Sokka sighed and drifted that way.

Zuko existed in that delicate, suspended moment between awake and asleep, when he breathed in the slow, regular way of someone asleep, when he didn't move, when he was beginning to slip away and perhaps have that falling sensation when—

_Creak_

The fire lord's eyes snapped open and he sat up, fire blazing to life in his hands. He slept alone in this room; Mae lived in a completely different part of the palace these days.

The late night visitor stopped in her tracks catching her breath, barely restraining a scream. The light of his fire made shadows dance across Katara's face, and it was a moment before she finally spoke,

"Sorry I—"

"What is it? Is everyone okay?"

"I—"She cut off and didn't speak more. Zuko blinked at her, lit a candle so that he could extinguish the fire in his hands.

"Katara, what are you doing here?"

Katara's heart was racing. He was waiting for her answer. She was silent, then she answered, her voice choked and small, but she'd made up her mind before coming in here to say what she needed to say, no matter what.

"I just don't want to pretend anymore." She choked out, and then she was crying. "I want you to know that I still love you!" She sobbed.

She was in the middle of his big, dark room crying alone, and then she was crying in his arms, and then she was crying but kissing him. She broke the kiss, "I thought you'd moved on?"

"No. I just got good at pretending." He said, and kissed her fervently.

_One last time, _She thought_. Just let us have this one last time._

What Katara rationalized as one last time became three times and her first morning waking up in his arms. Zuko's room was surprisingly bright—he had many windows and not a single curtain closed on any of them. His room was large—big enough for them to do their old Dui Bi routine at a mild setting without singing a single drapery or cushion.

Zuko woke first and escaped reality by pretending that he always woke up like this and would forever wake up like this, and could spend all day like this if he wished, having no other job but to enjoy her. He longed to see her eyes, to hear her say his name, to feel her lips on his skin. Unable to stand it a moment longer, he pressed his lips to hers, kissed her awake.

Her eyes fluttered open lazily, she smiled, and then her heavy eyelids closed again. He laughed, shook her gently, "Ka-tar-aaah" He sang and made a trail of butterfly kisses across her eyes. She giggled, but didn't open her eyes. She ran her fingers through his hair as his kisses went down her neck and then her breasts.

"I keep thinking of—" She began in a lazy slur but then she gasped loudly and sat straight up, throwing Zuko to the side. "It's morning!" She cried.

Just then, a knock on the Fire Lord's bedroom door echoed across the room and an all-too familiar voice, kind and bright, said as if in reply to someone's comment, "It's okay we go way back. I'm sure he won't be upset if I wake him."

Katara flung herself back and pulled the blankets up over her head just seconds before her husband stepped fully into the room.

"Zuko!" he said, "You're awake! Good."

"What is it?" Zuko was entirely too out-of breath, and Aang noticed, stopped, frowned. Then he noticed Zuko's bare torso, and the woman-shaped lump in the bed beside him. The Avatar turned red, and began backing away,

"Sorry. I'll be back when—um—Good morning, Mae—sorry, I thought—well, I don't know what I thought. Sorry. Bye—Sorry, kay, bye."

The door clicked shut.

No one moved for several long moments. Katara lowered the blanket from over her head. Zuko stood up, pulled on some pants, and began pacing. His steps were quick, his breathing frantic. He pressed on his lips with his finger tips. His eyebrows were together, his eyes darted back-and-forth. Katara dressed quickly, didn't know what to do when she finished so sat on the edge of the bed and watched him pace.

"That was too close." He said breathlessly, whispering despite the fact that they could practice Dui Bi on the highest level and Aang wouldn't hear it.

Katara felt cheap, not for having woken up in another man's bed, but for lying to her husband like that. If she had just left her face uncovered, had it all out right here in this room, before breakfast, then it would have been better than making Aang such a fool.

"What if he hadn't knocked?" Katara asked. Her tone didn't strike the right tone; it seemed more wishful than fearful. "What if our secret was revealed and Aang let me go?"

Even the furniture seemed to mock her for voicing it aloud. Zuko turned to her, eyes wide. "No one can afford to lose you Katara." He said seriously.

The certainty in his voice surprised her. He made her sound like a queen. She looked down. "Who am I to anyone?"

"Everything,"' He said hoarsely. Their eyes met and for a moment his answer was poetic, was the answer she wanted, but then he cleared his throat and met her eyes squarely.

"I'm serious, Katara." He said; "The Avatar's wife represents all that he stands for. If he loses you, then the people begin to imagine that Aang isn't all he used to be; then he loses support, and without support he loses trust, and without trust someone ignores his wishes, and when one king defies the avatar, others will follow until there is a rift; then the rift causes war, and the war destroys everything!" His voice escalated in volume and speed as he fell victim to a mild panic attack.

He moved away from her. The world hinged on Aang and Katara's marriage. What the hell were they doing risking the world? He composed himself to say as much to Katara. "If we aren't careful we could start the next war!"

Katara wiped a tear away before it dripped from her eyelash. Zuko's logic was unbendable. She had gotten too good at being Aang's wife. She couldn't leave him now. His image depended on it, and the world depended on his image. "Okay. You're right. It's our duty." She stood, put Zuko's loose hair behind his burned ear. "Just promise me this: we won't try to deny our feelings like last time."

"But—"

"It'll be easier, I think, to stay away from you if I knew that you were feeling the same way."

"So we spend the rest of our lives pining for each other," Zuko said, miserably, "knowing that the other pines in return, yet we never touch each other ever again."

"Yes." She whispered. "I thought you'd fallen out of love with me and I," She shook her head, dashing away another tear, "I can't live without your love."

And then she turned and ran through the door that led out to the gardens. Zuko watched her go and then strode across his room and opened the door. Aang stood out in the middle of the hall, feeding MoMo balls of bread.

Aang apologized, but Zuko wouldn't let him finish. Aang then went on to explain why he'd come looking for him. There were problems with the final plans for a city in the earth kingdom, and Aang had to return to sort it out.

"You're leaving?"

"Sorry old friend." Aang said, "but duties call."

Zuko swallowed something thick in his throat. It suddenly made sense why Katara had showed up so randomly in his room last night. She knew they were leaving.

She hadn't said goodbye.

Or maybe she had.


	3. Chapter 3

**A Sturdy Shelter**

Moles eat and dig, they do nothing else. When Toph lived with the moles, she learned to be like them. She ate and dug and did nothing else, not even sleep. Earth is unique from the other forms of bending. To move a rock, one must become the rock and control it as one controls an arm; naturally. Water benders ask the water to move for them; fire benders force the flame to move as they want it to; and air benders negotiate with the air and ask it to move, but allow it to be as it wants to be too. Earth benders are not friends or masters of their element. They _are_ their element.

As a rock, Toph learned many things; the least of which being who she truly was.

Without sleep, the body reenergizes with meditation, and meditation reaches into the soul. Toph was not as young as she seemed, but she had always known she was an old soul. Her entire life, Toph could remember a great sadness that she didn't understand. Then as she dug with the moles again, she began to remember more of her previous life—and the ones before that. It wasn't just a sadness that she remembered. She was alone.

The Avatar arrived at the secret council without his bison. The red finned glider carried him silently and smoothly up the cliff face where he landed lightly before the Order of the White Lotus. Were it not for the iconic staff, the young man could have been mistaken as someone else. With his brown hair long enough to twist into a small knot at the back of his head, the blue arrow was less noticeable and he no longer wore the traditional yellow and red robes of a monk. Instead, he wore a tunic and pants woven from the un-dyed wool of the bison.

In the eight years since the war, Appa had sired a good-sized heard which took up what little free time the Avatar had between ambassador duties, but he proudly displayed the markings of a humble bison herder as if he did nothing else. It was all part of his effort to rebuild the air-bending nation with those who had no country.

Tonight, only four masters stood in a semi-circle, debating a course of action as the orange sun sank into the waves. Two of those who had reclaimed Ba Sing Se in the final battle were now gone, and in their place were two of the Avatar's closest friends. Sokka had replaced his sword master, and Toph had taken over for King Bumi.

Aang's wise eyes crinkled but didn't smile as he greeted his old friends.

"Good evening." He said. "Sorry I'm late, but I couldn't get away."

"No worries," the earth bending master said with a smile. For some reason, she had stopped wearing the practical cloths of a boy; her dress trailed in the grass at least a foot behind her and covered her bare feet. It made her look taller and displayed curves Aang had never noticed before.

Gulping quietly, Aang waved a hand. "Shall we get straight to business? I can't stay too long."

"Fine," Sokka agreed. "I nominate _."

"Seconded," the water master said.

"_ is a strong fire-bender and a fine soldier, but I'm not sure he is a master." Aang said. "I nominate someone who learned from the true masters and taught me all that I know: Fire Lord Zuko."

The council fell silent. Then Toph broke the silence with one strong word, "Seconded."

Aang smiled. One thing hadn't changed; she still covered her unseeing eyes with her bangs.

Sokka was the first to speak up, his voice raising half an octave as he did, betraying the fact that he was surprised. "Can a fire lord be nominated? I mean, he already has a lot to do running an entire nation."

Aang shrugged. "I am rebuilding an entire nation and I have time."

Toph and others smiled. Aang cleared his throat. "The White Lotus is about balance and strength. We are the ties of the four nations. Master Iroh taught Zuko all of this; he just doesn't know what it means yet."

Sokka nodded and crossed his arms. "All in favor of Fire Lord Zuko replacing Master Iroh as the master of fire?"

Everyone raised their hand.

"How was your stay in the country Toph?" Aang asked at dinner.

"It was great. I reunited with the moles, taught them a few things." She winked at Aang as the rest of the Order laughed. Aang choked on his soup and wiped it from his chin as he looked around. No one else seemed to have noticed that someone had taught her how to do that.

"There's something different about you." Aang said. "You've changed."

"How?"

"I'm not sure. It's like you're happy now."

Toph tilted her head. "I didn't seem happy before?"

Aang scratched the back of his neck. "Well, it was actually kind of hard to tell. You were always so guarded."

"Oh…" She blushed. "I was kind of hoping it wasn't that obvious."

"What happened to change that?"

She was quiet for a long time. Aang didn't press her and waited patiently for her to find the right words.

"I used to feel all alone." She admitted.

"But your weren't," Aang insisted. "You had a family, plus all of us; another kind of family."

"I know, I know." She said. "It was more like a memory of loneliness that I never understood."

Aang nodded with sudden understanding. "A past life…" the avatar mused. He frowned with interest. "I've always thought you seemed older than you are."

She smiled. "Well I don't feel alone anymore."

Aang smiled at her. "Good."

Toph fidgeted with the sleeve of her dress. She bit her lip, which, Aang noticed, was colored with rouge. His brow crinkled with confusion, but then something on the wind caught his attention just as Toph found the nerve to speak. "Aang there's something—"

"Hold on!" Aang said throwing a hand up to silence her. She faltered and stopped. Aang tilted his head and held up a hand. A flurry of snowflakes landed on his sleeve. A huge smile split his face.

Utterly lost and confused, Toph dug her toes deeper into the cool earth. "What's going on?"

"Sorry, Toph," Aang said. "It's Katara!"

"Katara?"

"Yes. I hate leaving her when the baby is so close to coming, so I keep an air stream between us at all times so that she can contact me if she needs to."

Toph's neatly groomed eyebrows came together behind her fall of raven colored hair. "Huh?"

Aang smiled. "It's a bend I invented. See," he took her hand and held it in a thin stream of arctic air. Goose-bumps from the cold raced down her arm and overlapped with the goose bumps his touch had raised.

"I keep a steady stream of air moving from her to me at all times." He said, noticing no change in Toph. "All Katara has to do is send a little snow in my direction and I know I need to get back to her. Toph!" Aang said excited. "The baby's coming!"

"Oh," was all she could choke out. Aang whooped loudly, calling the rest of the Order's attention. Sokka jogged over. "What's going on?"

"The baby's coming!" Aang said happily. Sokka blanched. "What are you doing here then? Go! Go!"

The red fins flapped out and a gust of warm wind carried the avatar back along the path of the snow flakes. Sokka bounced happily on his toes, also a little nervous for his sister. He could remember how hard child birth was on his own wife.

"I'm sure she's fine." Toph offered, deducing his worry from his vibrations and the unevenness of his breath. Sokka smiled and dropped an arm around her shoulders. "I know she is." He shook his head. "She is so excited to be having another one. I don't really get it. I mean, Suki and I are thrilled that Tanaka is getting a little brother or sister, but we honestly don't know where we are going to get the energy for it."

Toph patted his hand as they turned back toward the house. "Oh you'll manage fine. Stop your crying."

Sokka laughed. "I hope so." He noted the silence in his old friend as they walked and he looked down at her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," She said shrugging Sokka's arm away. He didn't buy it, but knew better than to press her. He didn't want a rock punch to the kidney. He left Toph alone.

Disregarding the welfare of her dress, she sat in the dirt and listened, but Aang was off her radar, up in the air. She shook her head. Of all the people in all worlds that she could have been reincarnated as, why did it have to be a blind earth bender when he could fly?

Katara woke Aang as she got up in the middle of the night to nurse the baby, but he fell like a feather back into his dream. It was the most delicious dream he had had in a long time. He was floating in the cool water of a lake, letting the sun's warm rays soak into his skin.

Suddenly the air twitched and he opened his eyes in time to see a beautiful young woman hovering above him. Her long eyelashes tickled his cheek as her soft lips slipped over his. He tried to grab her, but with another gust of wind, she pulled herself out of reach. He let his hands drop back beneath the cold surface as he relaxed once again. "Fine," he teased the air bender, who was sticking her tongue out at him from just out of reach. "Fly away. See if I care."

She stuck out her lower lip. "You don't love me anymore?"

He met her eyes. They were green this time, and the life that shone out of them took his breath away, as they always would. He pulled a bit of the lake bed closer in order to stand. The water was just above his navel now. She dared to hover a little closer for another kiss.

"Never," he said, sweeping the hair out of her eyes and kissing her sweetly. His wet hands trailed down her face, then her neck and traced the blue arrow tattoo on her arms. She realized too late that it was all a trap. She tried to fly away, but he smiled against her lips and pulled her under the freezing water for more kisses.

Aang jerked awake as the baby started wailing again just before dawn. Disoriented, the avatar blinked and looked around the room for a clue as to what year it was. He found the answer in the wooden staff leaning against the wall. It came back to him slowly. He was the air bender. There had been a war. It was over. The air nation was beginning to thrive.

Aang sat up and touched his bare feet to the cool rugs covering the ice floor. The baby continued to cry. Katara's smooth, warm hand rested on Aang's back. "I'll get him." Her lips replaced her hand. "Sleep."

Aang obeyed the order and lay back against the warm pillows. Katara fanned the blankets as she got out of the bed. She disappeared into the next room and in a moment, the baby stopped crying, and she began to sing a lullaby. Aang listened to it as he recalled his dream.

He could still feel the sun renewing his fire bending strength, how the air he breathed had stirred something deep in his chest, and he could remember the temporary separation from the earth in his earth bending abilities as he swam, but the most prominent presence had been the power of the water caressing him. He had been a water-bending Avatar.

Aang had known, in that way that one knows things in a dream, that his name was not Aang, but something else, which made this a three hundred year old memory of a past life lived as the Avatar before Kiyoshi. The corner of Aang's mouth lifted. The air bender girl had to have left some kind of impression for it to follow the soul of the avatar into another cycle.

Then Aang recalled something. He had seen those eyes before…in the spirit world, on Koh. The face-stealer had mentioned in their brief conversation that he had met the avatar before, when he came to take revenge on Koh for stealing a woman's face.

Her face.

It was a different girl, this one had blue eyes, but they had the same familiar life in them as the air bender girl. Chills crawled up Aang's arms as he felt the echo once again. The echo was something Aang had gotten used to very early in his life; a side effect of having thousands of past lives. Everything felt like déjà-vu, or it stirred to life a powerful emotion that he didn't actually feel.

As Aang lay under the fur covers of his bed, he felt nothing but sleepiness and happiness and unconditional love for the new member of his family, but he could remember an intoxicating love, an alarming fear, a sadness and a consuming need for revenge all at once; everything _ had felt when his bride lost her face to the evil Koh.

The feeling of intoxicating love had been the exact feeling of the dream, which meant only one thing. If the brides had the same eyes and the same effect on the avatar, then she was the same person reincarnated, just like him.

It was all so suddenly clear to Aang.

She never had the same name twice, but the Avatar knew her for her eyes every time; the love of his souls. As he was born in a cycle through the nations, so was she; not always in the same nation, but always in his path in life. There was no day when they first found one another, for they were made as one but divided when he descended unto the four nations. They knew one another explicitly and loved unconditionally.

Aang was smiling when Katara returned to bed. She noticed as she settled under her covers and tucked her wild hair back behind an ear. "What is it?"

"I just had a dream about you." Aang said, rolling closer to kiss her. Katara smiled the way she did whenever he doted on her and kissed him back.

It wasn't really like the air-bender's kiss at all. For all his love for his wife, Aang felt like he was kissing the wrong person. He stopped kissing Katara rather suddenly, a knee jerk reaction to the feeling that he was cheating on someone.

"What?" Katara asked, opening her eyes.

Aang peered closer, but couldn't see, so he lit a small flame at the end of his finger to better see her eyes. Katara looked at him in the flickering light of his candle-like flame. Her eyebrows were bunched over big blue eyes that, for all their knowledge, were laughably innocent and naive compared to what he looked for; that spark, the light that shone through a couple of thousand lives with him.

"Is something wrong?"

Aang felt like he couldn't breathe. "I just need a glass of water."

He got out of bed quickly, before Katara could remember that they both had the power to summon one without getting up. The thought left Aang with an annoying suspicion that what he and Katara had wasn't love but an act of spoiling and mild affection—at least compared to what he had once felt in the water with the air bender, and later on the mountain with his bride the night before she lost her face, or to begin with among the first herd of the flying bison—

Aang splashed cold water on his face and looked in the mirror. His eyes were wide, his loose hair was now plastered to his head and his tattoo stood out on his pale skin above his dripping eyebrows.

He was in trouble and he knew it.

Guilty pleasures.

Aang had always heard of them, mostly from Zuko who made a comment here or there about them in their years of friendship. "They swallow you whole." Zuko had explained, adding, "—If you let them."

Aang had always considered himself above that. What with his monk upbringing and the required self-control that comes with his job description, he only ever knew what it was to want something, not what satisfaction came from giving into it. Never that.

Ever since waking up from his 100 year sleep in that iceberg, he'd had the stresses of war distracting him from wanting much of anything other than a little peace and tranquility—which he found in Katara. Then, when the war was over, he married Katara and had since lived a beautiful life with her—no reason to secretly want anything else, let alone give into it.

Until now.

Now he found himself wanting more than Katara's smiles and her gentle touch. Try as he might, he couldn't shake the soul-invading intoxication of the love he felt for the bright-eyed girl of his past lives. He ached to feel it again. He wanted it like nothing before.

He gave into the temptations.

Every time he lay down for sleep, he couldn't fight the urge to conjure images of her, the feeling of her, that wonderful heart-racing, world-erasing feeling of her.

Had he known such a thing existed before, he wouldn't have assumed that the warm feeling in his chest when Katara smiled at him, or the way it hurt to even think about anything happening to her, was love, not that kind of love anyway. A different love existed, a more powerful one, and he found it in his dreams.

He told himself he wasn't betraying Katara. All he was doing was dreaming.

A man was allowed to dream, wasn't he?

Katara expertly snatched the toddling Lee up before he toppled into the frigid water through an ice-fishing hole. She could have sealed the hole with her bending, but that would have broken her brother's fishing line, who was complaining about his growling stomach as he gripped his fishing pole.

"Have you noticed anything strange about Aang?" Katara asked. Sokka shrugged, "Nothing more than the usual—you know, too happy all the time and—" A realization hit Sokka and made him cut off abruptly. He blinked and looked at his sister wide-eyed, "hey, wait. He isn't happy all the time!"  
"Welcome to what I was talking about." Katara said, holding her squirming son in just one arm as she somehow managed to tie his boot laces with one hand. Sokka had seen Suki manage the same thing with their children and Sokka often wondered if there was some kind of class for mothers that he didn't know about in which they learned how to do this among other things, like touching gross things and knowing when a kid has something in their mouth even when they aren't chewing.

"Well, have you asked him about it?" Sokka asked.

"He shrugged it off, said it was nothing."

"Maybe it is just nothing."

"Maybe."

Sokka didn't miss the melancholy in his sister's voice, nor the way her eyes swept across the ice camp in a tired way. _Same old, same old_. They said. He decided to call it quits for the day and pulled up his line. Getting up with mock difficulty—he fancied he was getting old in all of his thirty years—he said,

"I have an idea. Why don't you get out of here for the summer?"

"What?" She asked in that way she always did when she didn't hear the question and wasn't going to hear the answer very well either. Sokka waved a hand in front of her face to get her full attention,

"Come with us to the Fire Nation this summer." He said. She'd missed last summer; Lee had only been three months old and neither had been up for the trip. Sokka knew better than anyone that two straight years on a block of ice would drive any world-traveling soul crazy.

"I know Suki will enjoy your company—Mae isn't much for conversation."

Katara sighed, a world weary sigh that broke Sokka's heart.

"I can't." She said. Sokka blinked, "Sure you can—in fact you probably have too. Zuko will be expecting to meet the Avatar's son, and you know as well as I that you aren't ready to let him out of your sight for a whole—"

"No. Lee's not going." She said.

"But—"

"I have too much to do around here, Sokka. And Kiki isn't going, either. She's starting her bending lessons! She told me last week she wanted to stay home with me."

"Oh, okay, but I don't get why—"

"In fact, I have somewhere to be right now." Katara said, marching off with a still squirming Lee under one arm. Sokka watched her go, frowning. He was supposed to know what in the hell that was about. It was the way of the water tribe to have no secrets from one another, even though no secrets were ever spoken out loud. It worked like this: Everyone Just Knew. Things were implied mostly with the eyes, sometimes with a vague word or two, and always with an all-knowing nod.

But for some reason, Sokka just couldn't recall any one of those things that might explain his sister's violent aversion to leaving her home. It must have something to do with Aang's strange behavior. Where they having problems? Had that been what Katara was trying to tell him?

Sokka sighed and turned to the moon, up already though it was far from night. "Oh, Yue." He mumbled, "Help her find happiness again…"

It was nearly Lee's first birthday when Aang realized that he was actually looking for the bright-eyed girl. He hadn't even realized he was doing it, checking the eyes of every girl he came across, and occasionally staring intently at the promising-looking ones until they became physically uncomfortable.

_She probably died in the war._ Aang thought in an attempt to berate himself and push back all thoughts of her. All he succeeded in doing was making his heart twist painfully as his breath escaped him.

It's a strange thing, when an air-bender loses his breath. He loses his bending for a minute too.

So it was unlucky that Aang had been flying his glider at the time.

With his control of the wind-currents gone, a blast of air slammed into him from the right, knocking him into a tail-spinning dive. He regained his breath and control of the wind before he got into any real danger, but the lesson was learned; don't ever think thoughts like _that_ again.

Finding a secluded place atop a hill, Aang decided he had better delay the meeting he was flying to and pop into the spirit world, just to check things out. He knew he would never be able to focus if he didn't find out what had become of her in this lifetime.

"_What is your question?"_

"_Is there another that is reincarnated with me every lifetime?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Who is it?"_

_Images bombarded him, memories of lifetimes gone by. They were all similar to the dream about the air-bender girl, scenes of romance. Every time she was different, as was he. In fact, as often as not, he was a girl and it was a bright-eyed man holding him tight._

_A few times they failed to meet in their lifetimes, dying sad and alone, or with family but greatly unsatisfied (like the way Aang found himself now.) He was astonished to find that sometimes, both were the same sex and it was only a deep and everlasting bond of friendship between the two as it was with Roku and his earth bending teacher. A few times they were brothers, once they were twin sisters, another time they were first cousins._

_But there was never a life without the bright-eyed one._

_His memories stopped at Roku, the lifetime before this one. It was the lifetime before he was born as an air bender who would trap himself in an iceberg for 100 years. Aang wasn't shown even a single memory from his early life, before the iceberg, which felt to Aang like a past life these days._

_"But who is the bright-eyed one now?" Aang asked, desperately._

_"I don't know."_

_"But you must!"_

_"Why must I? I am not all-knowing!"_

_"Is she dead? Can you at least tell me that? Was she killed in war?"_

_"Yes, many times."_

_"I meant, was she killed in this war, the one against the fire nation?"_

_"Oh, no, you will not find your other half here in the spirit world, the bright-eyed one lives as a mortal."_

_"But who?"_

_"You must find that out yourself, Avatar Aang."_

Aang arrived an hour late to the meeting. Everyone was milling around in boredom. Zuko was laying reclined on a windowsill that wasn't meant for sitting in, twirling his thumbs and humming something to himself. Sokka was flinging his boomerang into a thick wooden beam, yanking it out, and flinging it back in. Toph was sitting as still as the mountains that rose outside the window behind her, staring with her blank eyes at the beam that Sokka flung his blade into—the strongest source of vibration around. However, when Aang's feet touched down ever-so-lightly on the mat right outside the door, her head snapped his way and she smiled, "He's here!"

The others, though capable of sight, hadn't noticed. They looked sheepish in the way that one does when a blind person notices something first. Zuko sat up without putting his hands on the sill and then hoped down to stand respectfully. He smiled hugely at his friend, greeted him.

"Sorry I'm late. I got caught up." Aang said. He liked that no one asked for details. He had so much to do, it was entirely likely that one thing or another would steal away his time.

"Can we start this thing?" Sokka asked, "I'm getting hungry."

The meeting was a short one; all plans previously in place were running smoothly, and no occasion warranted the need for further plans to be made. When the meeting was adjourned, Sokka and several others hurried away in search of nourishment, Zuko held back and took a seat opposite his tattooed friend at the table,

"The word is something's bothering you." He said. Aang double looked the Fire Lord, who looked at him with understanding eyes, one healthy and one badly scarred. He had a beard now, something Aang tried a few years ago, but it irritated Katara's skin when he kissed her so he'd shaved it off. (Aang didn't realize this, but Zuko had begun growing his beard shortly after Aang told him why he'd saved his off.)

"Who told you that?" Aang asked.

"Several people." Zuko said, stroking his beard in a way he used to see his uncle do a lot; the way of a wise man. But it wasn't an act; Zuko really had become incredibly wise while no one was looking. "You're surrounded by people who care for you, you know."

Aang lifted one side of his mouth, "Why is it that you never fail to remind me of that?"

"Because it's true." The fire lord said. "You're lucky. Don't take it for granted."

"I just have a lot of things on my mind." Aang said. Zuko sighed and stood with a shrug. "Okay, I guess I have no right to demand secrets from you."

Aang was too distracted to even care what that implied.

The Avatar closed his eyes and sought the serenity of meditation—even though he was on a tight schedule and had somewhere to be. He needed quiet. He needed no thoughts. He needed rest.

He was beginning to wish he'd never remembered his soul mate—the feeling of being complete or not, it so-far only brought more stress into his life.

"My turn."

Aang jumped, lifting a foot or so more into the air than normal. As he did, Toph lost sight of him, but he was back in his chair soon enough and turned in her direction where she sat on a bench against the wall beneath the window. She smiled, "Spare a minute for an old friend?" She asked.

Aang's laugh was soft, boyish. "Toph. I didn't know you were still here."

"Zuko didn't, either." Toph laughed. "He had a super-secret tone when he spoke, the kind of tone people get when they think they are alone in someone's confidence."

"Eves dropping is a well-developed practice or yours, then?" Aang laughed. He stood, took exactly five steps to cross the room and took the place on the bench beside her. She laughed, "Maybe. It has served me well."

"Oh, yeah? Have any kind of juicy details to share about our friends?"

"Plenty." She laughed. Aang shifted in his seat. Toph wished she knew if he was looking right at her or not. He lay back against the wall, sighed. Toph imagined his eyes were closed.

"Uh-oh." Toph turned to look at him. She used to not even bother doing this—what was the point?—but someone advised her that people liked being looked at when spoken to, and that it was that simple act alone that helped spawn trust. Since then she'd put effort into it, even practicing leveling hers eyes at the height of the eyes of whomever she spoke too; a sort of blind target practice. "That sigh sounded like a spans-lifetimes-kind-of-trouble."

"It is!" Aang declared, his surprise evident. "But, then, why am I surprised?" He sat up straight again as he spoke, turning her way. "You're an old soul."

"It takes one to recognize one." She said, trying to do a kind of playful jut with her chin. She didn't like doing things like this, usually, but they were the things, she was told, that people liked to see.

"Yeah—" Aang's voice broke off very suddenly and in the same moment he was gone from her radar. She couldn't see him—he must have lifted himself up into the air.

She felt his fingers on her forehead first, and then she could see him again, he was standing on his feet in front of her.

He was brushing her hair from her eyes. She could feel his blood pulsing in his feet on the ground and in the touch of his finger tips on her skin—his heart was racing. He tilted her face up, he stopped breathing. He closed the distance between them and gasped. "It's you!"

Aang had been so used to the idea that Toph had no eyes. She had always kept them hidden behind her bangs, but when she spoke, the way she moved her head and made her bangs part, he'd seen because of his close proximity, the thing he'd missed all along: a spark, a brightness that shone in the filmy white veil that covered her faintly-green irises.

Bright eyes.

Old soul.

Best friend.

In his surprise, he wafted himself upright, straight to his feet, landing in front of her. He brushed away the hair that hid his treasure and tilted her face upwards for a better look, for conformation. She sat silent the whole time, bewildered by his actions.

"It's you!" He breathed. He didn't even realize that he closed the space between them as he said it. He thought of all the times they'd shared a laugh, or a fear, or a meal over the years. He'd been drawn to her from the moment he met her. She had always been something of a challenge for him—not just because of the blind thing, but because of the way she wouldn't allow weakness or doubt in him, as if she knew he was capable of what she asked. As if she just knew.

He opened his mouth to explain but she said, "It's about time you remembered. I was getting worried."

Aang's thoughts ground to a halt, the space opened between them again. He blinked at her, "_You knew_?"

She nodded, "For a little over a year now—it's why I was suddenly happy all the time. You noticed once, and asked me. I was going to tell you but then Katara…" She didn't need to finish her sentence. She didn't have too, Aang could recall the occasion.

Something was happening inside of him—stress was crumbling away. Aang suddenly made a loud exclamation and wafted up into the air again, twirling around in his exuberance. "Do you know what this means?" He asked.

"What?" Her voice was the breathiest it had ever been in this lifetime. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Surely it was causing an earth quake?

"I'm saved!" He said. He embraced her tightly, exciting a landslide inside of her. "It's you!" He released her and danced through the room for a minute. "A friend, a friend." He was saying, the relief inside of him oozing in his every word, "Thank the spirits they just made you my friend this time." He was relieved beyond words. He'd been so afraid he'd have to break his family apart, but no.

This time, the spirits sent the bright eyed one as a trusty friend!

Aang explained to Toph that he'd remembered her shortly after Lee was born and spent since then trying to, as he said, "figure it all out." When he explained what he'd learned in the spirit world, that sometimes the two of them spent entire lifetimes as dear friends, Toph finally realized what he was going on about.

It may have taken her longer than others would have needed, but she'd been carried away by the hammering heart in her chest that sang to her, telling her she wouldn't be alone this time—not this time. The weight of the loneliness from her last two lives—the lives in which she would have met Aang had he not become frozen beneath the sea—had been blowing away and it wasn't until Aang explain it to her that she understood him.

They were going to remain just friends.

And Aang was relieved at the thought.

The earth would have cracked open along with Toph's heart if at that moment Aang hadn't realized the time and, laughing said, "Listen, soul-buddy, I really need to get to Ba Sing Se, but we should definitely set aside some time to reminisce." The happiness in his voice, the freedom, the relief, buried Toph.

She could only nod. And then, in a waft of air that she felt push her bangs back, he was off her radar and she could hear him laughing on the wind as he blew away.

So it was to be three lives of loneliness for the bright-eyed one.

She wasn't planning on _stealing_ Aang from Katara, Toph might have been a home wrecker in one or two past lives, but she couldn't be in this one. Katara was too wonderful; and Sokka was too vengeful. He knew Toph was a girl, but to hell if he would treat her like one for ruining his sister's perfect life, and Toph knew it.

However, she also knew a thing or two about how the Fire Lord used to spend his summers, which helped with the guilt side of things whenever Toph caught herself thinking about Aang in that way. Was it really home wrecking if the wife wrecked it first?

Not that any of it matter. It was all a wild fantasy for Toph. Aang honestly thought they were meant to be friends. He was his old self again; always a little too happy, always doting on Katara; always ready to have a laugh with friends, and Toph was invisible to him in that way again.

The change in Aang was noted by everyone close to him.

Zuko congratulated himself for keeping it together and not confessing everything in a guilt-ridden minute, convinced as he was that Aang had discovered the affair. (Though it was a number of years behind them now, Zuko still unconsciously thought of it in the present tense.)

Katara didn't know what to make of it, and feared the worst. In her wildest imagination, she believed Aang had confronted Zuko about everything. Zuko had of course told all the secrets to regain Aang's trust, and perhaps convinced the avatar that he has long been out-of-love with the water bender, thus allowing Aang to find forgiveness and become his old self again.

That was probably what happened, Katara was ninety eight percent sure of it, but she didn't dare bring it up, and she couldn't ask Zuko. That would mean reestablishing contact. She knew her own weakness. If she spoke to or saw Zuko again she would lose control, hurt someone; Aang, her children. She could never do that. She let Aang visit the Fire nation alone every year, and to keep it from being obvious, she also stayed home for spring as well and missed the Earth kingdom festivals.

It wasn't a meeting for the Order, but they were all in Ba Sing Se for the earth kingdom festivals. The group of friends relaxed in the palace gardens. This was the Fire Lord's only vacation, so Zuko was asleep in the shade. Sokka and Suki were playing some chasing game through the hedges. Toph sat with her chin on her knees as she followed the vibrations of the happy couple. She didn't allow herself to feel jealousy or longing.

Toph had closed off once more, but the change was not as evident as Aang's recent recovery from his depression. Zuko didn't notice, and Aang believed she was only being herself again, his good ol' soul-buddy, but Sokka did notice (he was becoming more receptive of these things lately), which was why he and his wife came giggling out of the hedges with a plan and dropped down beside little Toph.

"Have you ever met my brother?" Suki asked her.

Surprised, Toph sat up straight and turned her head in Suki's direction. "No. Why?"

"I think you'll like him."

"What's he like?"

"He's got Sokka's build," Suki began.

"Well, he's shorter," Sokka interjected.

"Yes, dark hair,"

"—and his neck is thicker too, I think,"

"Anyway," Suki said, "looks don't matter, but I think you two will be adorable together!"

It took a few seconds for what Suki was saying to register. Toph's soft chin fell. "What?"

"Come on," Suki said. "We're all girls here."

Strangely her husband didn't respond to that, but kept tapping his foot in a passing-time- kind of way. Toph bit back a chuckle and shook her head. "If you say so."

"Listen, I know, okay?" Suki said, putting an arm around her. "I've been there. As one earth fighter to another, it is scary. You go your whole life convinced that you don't need a man to take care of you but then one day, something changes."

Sokka's tapping stopped and he moved closer to his wife to give her a very wet sounding kiss. Toph rolled her eyes behind her bangs and sighed. "Listen, it's not really like that okay?"

"Sure it is!" Suki said brightly. "We noticed that little phase where you dressed for the boys—hey, it's perfectly all right!" she insisted when Toph began to deny it, "It's natural. It's right. It's what I'm trying to tell you, Toph. You shouldn't give up so quickly. Just because a man didn't come out of the wood work doesn't mean you should stop trying."

Toph couldn't really see them anymore. They were both setting super still like people do when they are pitching a slightly ridiculous idea. Toph shook her bangs and rested her chin on her knee again.

"There's someone out there for you." Sokka promised.

"I know there is." She said rather wearily.

"So do you want to meet my brother?"

Toph really didn't see the point. "I don't know…there's kind of someone else…"

"Really?" Suki asked, not bothering to hide her surprise.

Toph considered explaining how she was Aang's soul-mate and they were meant to be together, but Aang had married the wrong person. She knew in that moment a hundred lives where she had betrayed the Avatar; and a handful were for selfish reasons like this, but she also knew that he would get over it. He always did. She opened her mouth to speak, but something stopped her; the question of why it would be a betrayal in the first place.

Because it was a secret.

Suki was waiting for an answer. Toph shrugged. "Never mind, it doesn't really count."

There was the kind of silence that meant the seeing-folk were trading weird looks, talking with their eyes. Toph had to say something since she opened her mouth, so she shrugged. "I'll meet your brother. I might as well."

"Excellent! He will be here in the summer for work." Suki kept talking, explaining whatever it was that her brother did, but Toph stopped listening. Aang's light footsteps were coming down the path.

Aang was in ear shot when Suki said something about how excited her brother was to meet the best earth bender in the world. Aang's footsteps stopped and then moved away, down a different path, out of ear shot again.

Toph excused herself at her very next opportunity, her heart racing like it does when someone makes a small mistake that will have much greater consequences than anticipated. She didn't want to meet Suki's brother, or date him or do any of that stuff, but she couldn't say that to Suki and have people wonder why. Her agreement was meant to get Suki to shut up, but suddenly it was like she was already dating the guy.

She walked with determination down a curving path toward the meditation garden. Mo Mo was chasing a butterfly from rock to rock in the middle of a sand pit raked to resemble waves in the ocean. There were no footprints in the waves to prove someone had been there, but Toph stopped on the edge of the sand and spoke to the man who was never too far from the lemur.

Aang had just returned from a small crisis in another part of the capital. Now that it was settled, the others would expect him back in the garden, but Aang needed more and more meditation lately. He sat on the biggest boulder, trying not to think of anything in particular, but as usual ended up thinking about the bright-eyed one in general.

From the myriad of lifetimes that the avatar could recollect, it seemed that she was born an earth bender more than she wasn't, which explained how Toph could be so powerful now; she was only combining everything she ever knew, but it also left the avatar uneasy, for those lifetimes tended to line up with his Air bending cycle…opposites certainly did attract.

"Why don't you tell anyone?" Toph's voice broke into Aang's memory surfing. Aang fell backwards off the rock. He landed with a mighty huff that stirred the branches of the tree above him. Mo Mo stopped his wrestling with an imaginary foe and sat up to tilt his head inquiringly at his spirit-brother. Aang laughed to himself as he found a more dignified position and then climbed back onto the rock. "Whoops." He said light heartedly.

Toph had parted her bangs, something Aang noticed she did ever since he recognized her eyes. She wasn't smiling, but her left eyebrow was raised in mild amusement. "I didn't scare you did I?"

"What was the question?" Aang asked instead.

Toph didn't bother to look in his direction or do any of the stuff that made people comfortable. She looked straight on, missing Aang by several feet. "You know what."

Aang scratched his eyebrow. There was no pretending that they weren't having this conversation. His voice was soft and directed at the ground. "I think our past romances will only confuse people."

"You mean confuse Katara." Toph scathed, crossing her arms.

Aang looked at the earth bender and scoffed a little cruelly. "Yes. I don't want to hurt my wife. How is that a bad thing?"

Toph opened her mouth to speak, but caught herself just in time. _That_ was not her secret to tell, however badly she wanted to. It would be best if he heard it from Katara, or even Zuko, but no purpose would be served in Toph telling him. If she did he wouldn't be able to think of anything else when he looked at her.

"I think she will understand," Toph hedged instead.

"Stop it." Aang said sternly. "We can only be friends in this life."

"Says who?"

Aang gulped. "It just has to be this way."

Toph walked through the deep sand pit. With her sense of sight temporarily dulled, she actually put her hands out to feel the rock before she crashed into it. It might also have been a reaction to the turmoil she felt inside that made it hard to focus on anything else, let alone the faint vibrations through sand.

The sight of the strong and beautiful little Toph feeling her way past the rocks like a blind child who couldn't trust the world twisted Aang's heart. He wafted to his knees and reached down to give her a guiding hand. Though small, she was solid, and he ended up having to use two hands to pull her onto the rock beside him.

As soon as she was steady, she jerked her hands away. "I'm fine!" she snapped, sweeping her fingers beneath her bangs to dry an eye. "I don't need your pity!"

Aang had never seen her cry before. He pushed her hair aside to see if it was truly happening. She hiccupped at his touch, her eyes swiveling slightly to meet his blindly. A fat tear drop leaked out of the corner of her eye. Aang watched it travel down her pearly skin and then caught it before it dripped from her chin.

She grabbed his hand like someone lost in the dark. In the space where the knee-jerk reaction to cheating was supposed to happen, Aang hesitated and then laced his fingers with hers. At the moment he was having trouble remembering why he couldn't have her.

"Kiss me?" she asked in a broken whisper. She would kiss him, but she had never done anything like that before, and didn't want to trust her blind aim.

There was one tantalizing moment when they both thought it was going to happen; but it didn't.

"I'm sorry." He whispered hoarsely, releasing her hand and jumping from the rock. A ripple of vibration in the sand was him landing. She listened hard but there was no further sign that he took another step.

Her walls were down. She cast everything to the wind.

"Our destinies are one." She said. Unable to judge the distance in which to pitch her voice, it was a little too loud. "They always are. Do you know what it was like for me last time? To meet my destiny and still leave my life unfulfilled? That happened twice you know! I haven't seen you since I was Roku's Sifu earth master! That's three lifetimes I haven't been loved like I should be! You didn't hold up your end. You didn't find me."

Aang turned, the staff in his hand cracking into a small boulder by accident, providing her with a target. Her eyes locked on him, disconcertingly bang-on-target with his. Aang found he couldn't look away from the spark that knew him better than he knew himself at the moment.

"I-I'm truly sorry you had to endure that." He choked.

She was openly crying. Sobs were shaking her shoulders. Aang was looking at a complete stranger and the only person he really knew at the same time.

"It changed me," she said, sniffing, "and I know it's hard for you to get past what I've become. I was guarded for too long. We've built a friendship that you can't reinterpret…but honestly, I don't know if I can do this without you _three_ times in a row…"

The longer Aang stood there, the more fractures in his heart he detected. It had broken a long time ago and he hadn't even noticed. Like a true earth bender, she was finding the fault-lines and moving them. They were widening.

"I'm sorry," he gasped again. "I didn't mean to mess this up."

He sank onto his haunches and hugged his knees, banging his forehead softly on his knee caps. He couldn't surrender to anything now. If he did it would be the point of no return. All he could hear was Zuko's warning that he would be consumed by it.

"You're right," Aang said. "If I can't tell anyone about this then it isn't just a friendship. But I can't do what you're asking me to do; I can't leave my wife. We have children. They wouldn't understand."

"They will when they're older—" Toph insisted, cutting off just in time. _It won't be the only thing they will have to accept._ She thought silently.

"I can't do that to them." Aang said with finality. "And I don't think I can see you anymore."

Then the sand moved under a wind front and he was gone.

The echo was still a new thing to Toph. She lost her breath as she experienced her current anger and heart break with a memory of the same emotion from a fire-bending life. The effect was that lava boiled under her crumbling rock facade. She didn't return to the grassy lawn where everyone else lounged. She packed her bags and left the city to be with the moles again.

This time, maybe they could teach her how to forget.

Aang landed on the cliff top as the wind stirred the dust. He took a deep breath to steel himself. He didn't know if Toph would be here or not. They really needed to work out some kind of schedule. Maybe Aang could send his opinions by letter instead of actually showing up? He could put the spare time toward the Air Temple Effort. Excited about this plan of action, Aang stepped into the house.

Sokka was eating and explaining the new code system. Zuko was complaining about relearning a whole knew one. The water master was defending his newest work.

"I was just getting the hang of the last one!" Zuko said.

"Well, good for you, it only took you two years, and by the way, Sokka's three year old figured it out faster than you!"

"Maybe that's because you came up with that one too."

"If my codes are so easy then why can't you just learn this one?"

"That's it!" Zuko's chair jumped backwards as he stood too quickly, his fist ready for a punch. The water bender threw up his hands, not in a surrendering kind of way, but in a ready-for-anything way. Sokka was trying to make them stop arguing.

"What's going on here?" Aang asked.

Sokka turned and sighed with relief. "Aang thank gods. Make the peace will you?"

"What's the problem?"

"Nothing," Zuko said, snatching up his copy of the new code and sulking to the windowsill to study it. The water bender rolled his eyes. "You know, for a fire lord, he likes to complain a lot."

"I've never heard him complain." Aang said.

"He's trying something new. I think it's called being an a—"

"Okay," Aang interjected. "I'll find out what's bothering him."

"Nothing is bothering me," Zuko growled.

The water bender snorted lightly. Sokka sighed and smoothed his eyebrows. "Boy, where's Rock Fist when you need her, huh? She usually keeps these two in line."

"What?" Aang asked. He looked all around the room, checking the corners twice. "Toph isn't here?"

"No." Sokka said.

"Then how did you get in here? This is her house!"

"She said we could use it. She's back in the country. Didn't she tell you that?" Sokka asked.

"Huh? Oh, she must have… I guess I forgot." Aang said, trying to reinforce his composure before any cracks were seen. He didn't know what was wrong with him. He had hoped he wouldn't have to see her, but now that she was truly not here, he felt like he was stuck in some quicksand. He made a mental note of high priority to write her as soon as possible with his new idea to let her have the White Lotus Meetings; she never liked going into the city for festivals anyway.

"What does she do in the country so much that she keeps going out there?" Zuko mused aloud. "You think she has a lover?" he jumped his eyebrows. Aang wasn't amused at all.

"Come on, it's Toph." Sokka said. "She's living with the moles; she eats bugs and she digs."

"Hey, no need to ridicule." Aang said. Sokka's eyes widened innocently and he held up his palms. "Hey, I'm not judging. It's just who she is. I think she's become such a powerful earth bender that she's…I don't know…_becoming_ the rock. Isn't that how bending rock works? You have to _be_ the rock. She's so good at it, I think it's starting to actually happen, you know?"

Zuko was looking at Sokka through his scrunched eyebrows. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"It's not a crazy as your lover theory."

"What's so crazy about that theory?" Aang asked.

"Nothing I guess," Sokka admitted, squirming like a boy who was admitting that buggers tasted all right. "There's bound to be one person out there who's into that kind of thing, but I don't think he's here. Tell me seriously, have any of you ever thought of Toph in that way?"

Aang opened his mouth to retort that, as a matter of fact, he _did_ think of her that way—but then he stopped himself. Sokka had worded his question very precisely without meaning to, without even understanding the full compass of his inquiry. He's asked if men thought of _Toph_ in that way, not if men thought of the Bright Eyed One.

Aang thought back on all his time spent with his earth bending soul buddy. Even the few moments when the touch of her skin made his heart pound like a rock on a drum, he had been wrapped in the memory of all her other touches. He could think of no moment when Toph, Little Toph in all her unique wonders in this life alone, ever captivated him.

He was sorry to find that there was none, except one memory, from the last time he saw her, crying openly and begging him to look past what she had become.

Aang hadn't truly understood what she had been talking about, for in the moment, she was being all he ever remembered, Light, Strength, and Harmony—but she had been asking him in to merge the two conflicting ideas of what he felt with what he saw. He had to think of Toph as the bright eyed one, not the bright eyed one as Toph—that made all the difference.

Either he loved her eyes, or he loved Toph.

"I need some air." Aang said past a dry throat.

Mother Dig stomped her foot once and scratched the floor of the tunnel. She wanted to know what was bothering The One Who Lived in the Light. Toph took a deep breath of cold air that smelled and tasted like old earth. They were a few hundred miles under ground; this soil was created over a million years ago. It felt like home to Toph here, surrounded by the spirits of her earliest lives.

Things were simpler down here. The memories this smell provoked were trouble-free; sweet memories of a love that was undemanding. So far, all of the memories from her later lives left a heavy weight in her stomach. Maybe it was beginning to get too complicated, this thing between her and the avatar. Maybe what they were doing was a good thing. Keep away from each other for a few lifetimes. Clean the slate. Meet anew. Then maybe it wouldn't feel so much like baggage.

This wasn't something she could explain to Mother Dig.

A stomp, two scratches, a sweep, then two stomps; three scratches, and another sweep. The One Who Lived in the Light was fine, just thinking about the Age of These Spirits. She would have liked to live Back Then.

Mother Dig dug her claws deep into the earth and scratched once, then swept the lines away. Why in Earth would The One Who Lived in the Light want to live Back Then?

Toph scratched the rock twice and then stomped each foot once for emphasis. Because it was Good.

The soil turned into impenetrable diamond. No.

Mother Dig swept three times and stomped twice. Now is Good.

Toph shook her head as she swept three times and then stomped three times. Now is Bad.

Mother Dig scratched the earth. Why?

Toph stomped four times. Pain.

Three scratches, four sweeps. Pain is in All Time.

With a deep breath that made her feel one with the earth in which she burrowed, Toph found Mother's Dig's soft fur and stroked her massive foreleg. Mother Dig's tongue flicked the tip of Toph's nose. She smiled, and the diamond turned back into moveable soil.

Even though she was blind, Toph knew the moment the light was visible. It was the end of her radar; the source of the Breathe. The feeling of that endless untaken space was the color blue to Toph. When she was a small child, the teachers told her things, like that the grass was green and the sky was blue, as if she understood colors; later another tutor tried to attribute each color to something she could feel or taste. All that stuck with her from that lesson were things like Red was the smell of ripe, juicy strawberries, or yellow was the warmth of the sun, but Blue had proven too difficult to translate. It remained that great big, giant untouchable thing that lay just out of her unique sense of sight; the sky.

She had retreated underground to find a way to forget, but now she returned to the light having learned acceptance instead. She couldn't erase the bad things; all she could do was live through them. Whether she did that with a smile or a frown was up to her.

Appa flew too slowly. Usually, Aang's commute between cities was his only moment of peace and he relaxed and enjoyed the ride, but now that he wanted to get somewhere as fast a possible, he realized how slow Appa was actually becoming.

"Yip! Yip!" Aang called, flicking the reigns.

Appa groaned and growled. This was as fast as he could go. Aang grew sad at the thought and patted Appa's thick furry neck. "Oh boy. You're getting old aren't you?"

Appa rumbled as if to say, yes, very old, glad you could catch on today.

Aang laughed and scratched Appa in his favorite spot, right between the horns. "I'm sorry, buddy. I've missed a lot of obvious things lately. This will be our last trip, what do you say? There and back again, and then you can retire, be old king of the herd. Sound like fun?"

Appa growled in the affirmative.

"Toph! What are you doing here?"

"I know I should have asked if I could come first."

"No, no, it's fine. I just—Hi."

"Hi. I know you said we can't be around each other anymore, but, well, maybe it doesn't have to be that way. I wasn't making it very easy for you to be around me before, and I just wanted you to know that I am going to work on that. I'll be the good old me again. Just Toph. I think so long as you don't look dead into my eyes we can be okay, don't you?"

"What's gotten into you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean how can you decide to just forget everything and pretend it never happened? How is it even possible?"

"It's not. You were right. We can just be soul-buddies, because maybe that's all we are meant to be. I wasn't really giving it my all last time. I was convinced I was supposed to be the one on the avatar's arm, but that's just not how you see me, and I'm okay with that now."

"Toph…"

"Really, Aang," she said, driving home her sincerity. "Why do we have to make this complicated? Maybe, if you had met me first, before I ran away and became a rock, then I would be a mother of two and traveling the world with you, but you met Katara first, and you loved her first, and I've only ever been a friend to you, right?"

Aang didn't speak at his turn.

"Right?"

"Yes." He admitted softly. "I'm sorry."

"No apologies. The mountain formed this way."

After one incredible night, and a close shave the next morning, Zuko stopped expecting Katara in the summer. Aang came alone, or with the kids-, and sometimes a member of the White Lotus hitched a ride on business. Aang said once that Katara didn't like the heat of the summers and preferred the crisp air of the poles this time of year. Zuko had wanted to send an invitation for the winter and see how she would worm out of that one, but that was only his wounded ego scheming. She had said they wouldn't deny their love, but with each passing year, her absence began to feel more and more like a write off. Maybe the separation was doing what sheer force of will couldn't. She was finally able to cut the chain. She was free of him.

Zuko took up drinking after that. It was only Uncle's Special Tea, enough to put him to sleep every night. Regrettably, as fire lord, he couldn't make it a full time hobby. Aang said nothing when he learned of this, but asked for a cup.

It had been a good day, but fate liked to deliver doozies every now and again. This one had hit the avatar at midday, when he passed a sitting room where Zuko's great aunt's harpsichord still sat polished and brand-new looking in the center of a rug. Someone was playing a lovely tune. He stepped in to have a look.

It was one of the noble's daughters, concentrating hard as she watched the keys she pressed in time to the metronome. Aang had forgotten just how sweet a harpsichord sounded, but just as soon as he thought this did it change and become nothing but a slightly clunky and annoying buzzy sound like he remembered.

The girl faltered through a new section that was just a tad out of her current skill. Then the chorus, and easiest part of the song, repeated, and the beauty returned. This time Aang was able to identify the improvement as a human voice.

Smiling politely, and softly congratulating the girl for her perseverance and growing skill, Aang went to the balcony doors to have a look at who was outside humming the words.

To his utter surprise it was Toph. He even took the extra three steps to the left to see the entire balcony. She was the only one out there. The beautiful sound that saved the song was coming from tough little Toph.

Aang had been picturing some elegant lady of the court leaning on the railing as she fluttered a hand-painted fan before her face and stared longingly into the distance, where adventures happened; not Toph, who sat cross-legged on the railing with her back to the magnificent view, unafraid that a gust of wind might blow her to her death; for not only was she too solid to tempt the wind, but the ground answered to her and would catch her if she fell.

The moment he stepped in front of the glass doors, Toph perked up and stopped her humming. "That you, twinkle-toes?"

"Yep," he said joyfully. "Was that you singing?"

"I wasn't singing." She said.

"Yes you were."

She shrugged. "I was only humming. Do you know the words?"

"Not all of them."

"Teach me what you know." She said. "Or else later this tune will drive me crazy."

Laughing, Aang pulled himself up to sit beside her, his legs dangling over the side so that he could see the city, and sitting together like that, Aang taught her the lyrics.

"Yeah, that's it. You got it." Aang said an hour later, when Toph finished singing the song. She smiled. Aang smiled to; it wasn't a friend smile. Before he knew it, his hand was lifting to touch her face-but then she spoke, oblivious to the existence of the moment. "It's a pretty good song isn't?"

Aang took a deep breath and tried to shake it off and silently reprimanded himself. He wasn't supposed to look in her eyes!

…But he hadn't. Her eyes weren't showing at all; they were safely hid behind a thick curtain of bangs.

"If I could see the keys and the music, I probably would have learned to play it," She said conversationally.

Aang had an idea about how she could learn, but at the moment it felt too much like something he wasn't supposed to do. Sitting next to her on a small bench and guiding her fingers to each key meant a lot of touching and soft voices—those two things usually led to a different way of passing the time than music. He only nodded and agreed; it would have been nice if she had been able to see.

He excused himself and returned to the errand from which he had been momentarily side-tracked. The rest of the day had been suffered with a constant berating narrative running in the background.

_Tell me seriously, have any of you ever thought of Toph in that way?_

_The bright eyed one._

_I know it's hard for you to get past what I've become_

_Soul buddies._

…_but honestly, I don't know if I can do this without you three times in a row._

When Zuko admitted that Uncle's Special Tea wasn't just an ordinary tea, it felt like the signal to the end of a day that had gone on long enough. Aang asked for a cup. Zuko double looked him "I didn't know you drank."

"I think it's time I started. Just a taste." Aang said.

Zuko poured a generous amount and passed it to the avatar. "What's eating you?" The unintended emphasis on the word _you_ made the avatar double look the fire lord. "You first."

Zuko emptied half his cup. "Mae hates me."

Aang's eyebrows went up. "You sound certain."

Zuko laughed.

"Well, when was the last time you were with her?"

Zuko looked up from the steaming surface of his tea into the younger man's face. "With her or, you know, with her?"

Aang chuckled. "Either. Or Both."

Zuko scratched the back of his head. "Uh…eight, nine years ago?"

Aang choked on the special tea. "_What_?"

Zuko laughed pathetically. "I told you."

"Wow…and I thought I had it bad." Aang said, almost to himself.

Zuko refreshed his cup. "Oh yeah? Tell me about it."

"Oh no, not until we solve yours," Aang said. This was his natural defense mechanism. FixFixFix. So long as he had work to do, he didn't have to worry about himself. "Have you tried giving her flowers?"

Zuko's face contorted in disgust, as if Aang had asked if he gave Mae a jar of slugs. "I don't think that would work."

"How do you know? Have you ever tried?"

"Well…no, but—"

"Then don't knock it until you've tried it." Aang said. "Give her flowers. It works every time."


	4. Chapter 4

**Eye of the Storm**

Zuko found Mae throwing knives at a practice dummy in her room. He cleared his throat. She looked around in surprise. "What?"

"I just wanted to see you." Zuko said. He presented the flowers. Mae looked at them as if they really were a jar of slugs. "What's this for?"

"I guess I miss you."

"You guess?"

"I mean I miss you."

She took the flowers.

The Avatar arrived at the Fire Nation palace on Sala, a beautiful young female flying bison. She was black with white arrows; the youngest in the only herd of flying bison in the world, and she was Aang's first choice after it was decided that Appa was getting too old to fly around the world. Though a strong flyer, she was over eager, particularly in landing.

Aang stood on Sala's massive head, holding the reigns. He was nearly thirty by now, and was finally starting to look his age. It was the wisdom in his eyes; the perpetual laughter that had once been in them, making them seem like the eyes of a child, was long gone, though they still smiled. His hair had grown down to his shoulder blades, but was now tied up tightly.

"Hold on, kids!" Aang bellowed as Sala went in for the landing. The two eldest, Sokka's daughter Tanaka, and his own, Kiki, held on tight to their little brothers. Lee shrieked and giggled as Sala descended too quickly. Aang's heart warmed. Now there was a true Air-bender: someone who loved the feeling of falling through nothing.

Once the bison was firmly on the ground, Sokka and Suki jumped down and began helping the children. Aang floated down in his usual way, but this time with his toddler son in one arm. Lee laughed merrily again, making Aang laugh. The older kids shot off into the gardens in a racing game. Zuko dodged through them on his way to the adults.

After their greetings, Zuko smiled at the baby in his friend's arms.

"This must be Lee." He said. Katara had kept the baby with her the past summer. This was the first she let him go. Zuko gave the baby a half bow, "I'm very pleased to meet you, first son of the Avatar." Then to Aang he asked, "Is he an Air-bender like you or a water bender like Kiki and his mom?"

"We don't know yet." Aang said, then he added under his breath, so as not to offend the child who was squirming to get out of his arms, "He's a late bloomer."

Zuko chuckled, "Most of us great men are." He told the boy, holding his eyes in a steady stare. The baby stared back, transfixed by the hideous scar on the smiling-man's face before he, too, smiled big, showing tiny teeth, and laughed joyfully. Zuko felt pleased; he certainly hadn't won the hearts of the other children so fast.

Aang laughed and put the boy down. On wobbly legs, the child headed after his older sister and cousins. Aang turned serious eyes on his friend, "How is Mae?" he asked. It had been several months since the two got to talk about this, Aang's latest FixFixFix Project: Zuko and Mae's love life.

Zuko smiled, because on perfect queue Mae breezed into the garden. Aang hadn't seen her in years—she'd been living in the southern palace at the sea. Aang blinked in surprise—if ever he thought about her, he remembered a bored-looking girl whose hair hung in her face. Now her hair was up, revealing her face. She was glowing, smiling. She was _pretty_!

She came to stand beside her husband, who put an arm around her waist, drawing Aang's attention there, where her stomach was round.

Aang's jaw dropped to the ground. His eyes went round. He took a step back.

"ZUKO!" He cried. The happy couple laughed as the Avatar launched several feet above their heads and then drifted back down. He grabbed the Fire Lord's hand and shook it vigorously, "Congratulations!" Then he turned and called Sokka and Suki over from where they were chasing after the kids to keep them from drowning in the pond. Their reaction was very similar to Aang, if not ten-fold because they hadn't known about Aang's attempts to help Zuko repair his broken marriage.

Hours later, the two stood side by side in a Fighting game. They faced a horde of dirt mounds powered by earth benders perched on the walls of the pit. The tiles hanging on one side beneath the seats of the audience said that they were tied. Sokka rang a bell and screamed, "FINAL DEATH!"

The audience went wild. What the two had meant to be a little sparing match between the two of them had turned into a full-blown spectacle; the entire palace was here to see. Even the servants.

For this reason ,they could no longer go against each other—it would present the wrong image. Zuko had enough trouble keeping his people satisfied. Going head-to-head with the Avatar and losing, even in a mock game, wouldn't help—winning would only make things exponentially worse.

So they hired the Earth benders.

"It'll be like the old days." Sokka had said. It had all been his idea, really. "Like when we trained for the war. Oh, and I'm holding bets, so I told the Earth Benders to make it interesting. Good luck"

Zuko had no idea who in their right mind would bet against the _Avatar_, for goodness sake the man had _taken away_the bending of the most powerful fire bender in the world when he was just sixteen! But then Zuko saw the arena; there were _sixteen_ Earth Benders that would be hurling mountains at them under orders to _make it interesting_.

And interesting it was.

Several times Zuko was nearly squished like a bug. Once he was nearly buried alive in a monstrous rock-slide that he'd brought on himself by shooting lightening at the on-coming horde of solid-rock ogres. He got the ever-loving life bolder-punched out of him too many times to count.

Somehow, though, the two had managed to tie the score against their earthy enemies. When Sokka rang the bell and the final match began, a gargantuan fist of rock nearly squashed the two of them length-wise into little plate-sized circles of crunched up human. Aang blew them both out of the way just in time. Jumping to his feet, he got the idea.

"Zuko!" He'd called. "Dui Bi!"

Duh.

Zuko couldn't believe he'd forgotten it for this long. But then, he had reasons to think of that fighting style in a way that totally didn't call Aang to mind. He nodded, falling into the proper stance, and began. The two of them kicked ass after that, and won the match easily.

In a lurch, all of the dirt mounds snapped back into the earth, leaving the ground of the pit smooth, even without a pebble, and the Avatar and Fire Lord side by side in the final stance of the fight.

The crowd went wild.

"Daddy, that was soooooo cool!" Kiki cried, running to jump up into Aang's arms when they came inside. Once there, she shrieked and leapt out of them again, "Ew, sweaty!" She screamed. Trailing in behind her were the other children and Sokka, who was counting his money happily. He'd made quiet a lot.

"That was incredible, you two." He said. "I liked how you waited until the last match to unleash the power of Dui Bi. It really emphasized that, while the nations are independently strong, they are stronger together."

Aang and Zuko traded a look, and decided not to admit that they had simply just forgotten that move until then or else they'd have used it much faster.

"Look what I can do!" Kiki squealed. She was doing one of the water-bending moves she'd seen her father do, though it was on a significantly smaller scale. For one thing, it was only the water from a single cup that she used (as opposed to the nearby river that Aang had drawn from) and instead of a fifty-foot high beast of rock, it was her baby brother, Lee.

The water hit him in the face and knocked him backwards.

"Kiki!" Aang reprimanded, but he didn't get any further than that in his scolding because Lee, who'd suffered no injuries because he'd only landed on his hind side, picked himself back up and did the move back.

But with fire.

Aang stopped scolding.

Sokka stopped counting his money.

Zuko stopped smiling.

Not realizing anything was wrong, little Lee kept throwing fire at his sister—little tendrils that burned out without reaching her. He shrieked with laughter and preened with pride every time he did it. Kiki sat looking at him in silence, knowing, in all of her five years, that something was wrong.

Aang looked from his son to Zuko. It was the look of one friend to another, meant to be a shared look of confusion, but when he saw Zuko's face—and the dawning guilt there, Aang understood.

Zuko never took his eyes off the little boy—the little boy who now so obviously had black hair not because it ran in Katara's family like Katara told anyone who asked, but because Zuko had dark hair. Who was fire bending because Zuko was a fire bender. Who name was Lee because it was Zuko's middle name.

He must have felt Aang's eyes on him, because he finally tore his own away from Lee—his illegitimate son—and met Aang's eyes. Breath escaped him noisily. He moved his mouth as if speaking, but no words came out.

Aang couldn't move as the full realization of it all crashed down around him.

He'd been with her. She'd been with him—the idea made Aang's stomach flop. Quick math proved it. Katara's last visit here was when it happened. Unbidden, the memory of walking in on Zuko and Mae—Mae who Zuko recently confided in him hadn't been with him for _eight years_! It hadn't been Mae at all. It'd been Katara. It had to have been.

How had he not realized it then?

"Aang, I—" Zuko started, but Aang held up a hand, backed out of the room, turned when he reached the door and ran.

Snapping his staff into flight-mode, Aang took to the air blindly for the tears that blurred his vision. He had to get away. He couldn't look at him—his so called friend. He flew straight to Sala. He was going home. He had to talk to Katara.

Back in the room, Lee was still spurting his tiny flames and Zuko was sunk onto a chair with his face in his hands. Sokka wasn't moving. He had utterly no idea what to do.

"Where'd Daddy go?" Kiki asked. Sokka snapped out of it and looked at his niece. "He's, um, well—he had something to do. Why don't you go find Aunt Suki?"

"Okay." She said. She took her brother's hand and they left. Sokka turned to Zuko.

"What where you thinking?" He asked plainly and simply.

Zuko didn't lift his head, but his answer was an explosion. "We weren't, that was the problem! We—we never wanted to hurt anyone we just-" Zuko stood, punched the wall.

Sokka was putting things together in his head. "This has been going on for a while hasn't it?" He asked.

"Not for years." Zuko said.

"But it started a long time ago." Sokka said steadily. Zuko took a deep breath, nodded. "Before we even won the war."

Sokka's knees went weak. He hadn't expected it to have been _that_long. "What?" he asked.

"Nothing happened until after…" Zuko's voice trailed off. He finished with his voice leaden with guilt, "until after we were both married."

Sokka exploded at this; throwing his arms around, and shouting. "If you had feelings before you got married then why didn't you just get married?"

"I asked her!" Zuko shouted back. "She wouldn't—I thought she didn't love me until…" He didn't finish.

Sokka was shaking his head. "Do you have any idea what it will look like when the world finds out that the Avatar's wife wasn't faithful to him? Do you have any idea what will happen when they find out that it was the Fire Lord she slept around with?"

"It won't come to any of that." Zuko promised.

The Southern Air Temple was as glorious as it had been in Aang's childhood over a hundred years ago. It pulsed with life. Monks grew fields of fruit trees and ran one of the only four air bending schools in the world. Katara worked in this school during the summers, teaching history. She was a brilliant story teller, and held her students captivated until the end of every lesson. She was in the middle of one such story when the unmistakable sound of Sala coming in for a landing caught her attention.

Closing the book, Katara hurried to the window to have a look. It was Sala. Her heart lodged in her throat—something terrible had happened, she just knew it; there was no other reason for them to return so soon.

"Read the rest of the chapter in silence, please," Katara instructed the class as she hurried out of the school house. Aang was already walking her way. He was alone and he was upset.

Katara swallowed dryly and closed her eyes. She knew it had been a bad idea to let Lee go to the Fire Nation. She braced herself for what was coming and opened her eyes. Aang was as silent as the grave, shaking his head; his eyebrows were low but arched like when he was angry.

"Aang, what is it?" She asked. It was too much of a habit. She had to pretend like nothing was wrong, even when she knew there was. Aang closed his eyes as if she'd just pushed a knife further into his heart. "How could you?" he asked.

A million answers, excuses, reasons, came to mind, but all she could say was, "How could I what?"

Aang's muscles tensed. The wood of his staff creaked in his hand. "You know what!" He shouted. Katara jumped. He'd never shouted at her in anger before. Ever. It was enough to break her silly habit of denial. Her back straightened. "I'm sorry, Aang. I'm so sorry!"

"_My son_?" he asked, slapping a hand to his chest. "You let me believe he was _my son_?"

"Aang-"

"Why not just tell me, Katara? Why didn't you just end it? Why did you make me believe—"

"I couldn't tell you—"

"You could have!" He shouted. The school house window was full of the bald heads of the air-bending students curiously seeing what the shouting was all about. Although his anger was unlike anything he had ever felt it wasn't enough to erase his avatar need to maintain peace. Likewise, Katara's motherly instincts to protect children at all costs kept her from taking advantage of Aang's sudden silence.

For the next intense few minutes, they only starred into each other's burning eyes. Aang's injury from her betrayal and his anger for her lies put the same kind of flickering light in the avatar's blue eyes that had so captivated Katara in Zuko's, but it's affect was as different as the emotions behind it. Zuko's eyes danced with barely-controlled love. Aang's was dancing with barely-controlled rage.

Katara's remorse for his pain and defensiveness for her actions made her eyes solid blocks of impenetrable ice that reflected the fire in the avatar's eyes. Taking a deep breath that was loud enough to break the tensioned silence, Katara turned and walked to Sala.

Aang flew ahead of her and took his seat at the reigns. They took to the air the second Katara was on board. The usual cleansing sensation of air whipping through his clothes did nothing for Aang. He felt nothing. It was all he could do to keep out of the avatar state.

Katara was only waiting until Sala was at cruising speed and altitude to talk. This was it. The time was now. She would say all that she'd wanted to say since the first time Lee looked up at her with his amber eyes.

"The first thing you have to understand is that the river brought us here." Katara said.

"Oh the river—Don't talk to me about the river!" Aang shouted. "So you think water tribe philosophy is going to help me right now Katara? I'm the avatar—my destiny doesn't follow a river!" His eyes and tattoos flashed, the avatar state was triggered by his rupturing emotions, but the light vanished a minute later as Aang allowed the air to take away the top layer of his anger and it became controllable once again.

Katara was impressed. That was some serious control.

"You are such a great man, Aang," Katara said, the first tears flowing down her cheeks, "you're the most powerful bender there is; that's what I love about you and that's why I married you—that and because I was angry. I was angry at Zuko for marrying Mae instead of me."

Aang turned around and Katara saw more hurt on his face than she could have ever imagined. "_I was rebound_?" Aang abandoned the reigns to stand over Katara. "Are you saying it was all a game—a sick game to get at Zuko, that's all our life together has been?"

This time, Aang's eyes and tattoos began to glow and he couldn't stop them. The avatar state took over. Sala had never been exposed to such power. She bucked wildly.

The avatar was already floating, but Katara was catapulted into the cloudy sky. Her scream was lost on the wild bison's slipstream, but the Avatar was already moving to catch her. She was weightless in a matter of seconds and falling—falling fast for the jagged earth below—but before Aang could catch her, she acted quickly, pulling all the clouds in reach—a good four kilometers in diameter—into a pool big enough to catch her. She tucked into a cannon ball and struck the water-bulb at terminal velocity, sinking to its heart. The water came to life under her command and lifted her in a spinning vortex back to the avatar's eye-level.

He didn't ask if she was alright; the avatar didn't speak in this state unless it was direly important. Katara still couldn't help taking it a little personally. She glowered. "You were _not_ rebound, Aang!" she shouted. "I loved you!

Aang blinked, and slowly came out of the avatar state but remained floating by employing an air vortex similar to Katara's water. Tears were running down his face.

"I still love you Katara." He said. "Have I not given you enough? What is it that you were looking for with him? Passion? Where you bored, did you need drama? A palace to live in? What?"

Katara gasped. "How dare you? I didn't mean for any of this to happen!"

"Then why did it happen?" Aang shouted. "Don't you have any self-control?"

"Well excuse us for not being the avatar!" Katara shrieked. Below, the school children were looking up, pointing and shouting, but neither Katara nor Aang noticed.

"I have always loved Zuko." Katara said firmly. It felt good to say it out loud. She did so a few more times. "I love him—and he loves me—our love is like a wild fire that can't be controlled. We've tried, but we just can't. Look, I'm sorry it had to happen this way—but I'm not sorry it happened. I'll never be sorry for following my heart!"

"What about the lies Katara? I don't care if you love him or if he still loves you—how could you lie to me for so long? It was you wasn't it? That morning I came into his room, the last time you were in the Fire Nation?"

"I almost told you then—but we couldn't risk starting a war. It just seemed easier not to say anything."

"You have no idea, Katara-_no idea_-how easy it could have been if you had told me the truth in the beginning!"

"I have never lied to you. You just never asked!"

"You let me believe—that's worse than lying, Katara!"

"I'm sorry!"

"I can't be around you right now." Aang said.

Sala crash-landed outside Zuko's palace a day after Lee first bent fire. Zuko was the first to meet him, rushing down the steep steps so fast that it forced Sokka to take them two at a time, backwards as he tried to keep Zuko away from the avatar—the pair of them meeting so soon was just a bad idea as far the water-triber was concerned.

"Get out of the way," Aang called at Sokka.

"Aang, let me explain!" Zuko called desperately.

Sokka stepped aside before he killed himself with a misstep and allowed the avatar and the fire lord to meet half-way down the steps.

"Do you still love her?" Aang asked directly.

"What?" Zuko asked wildly. Aang's reserve was more frightening than the avatar-wrath he'd been expecting. He gulped. Did he?

"Do you?" Aang asked. "I need to know!"

"I—I don't know." Zuko said with painful honesty. "I want to say no. But I can't honestly say how I'll feel if I see her again. I might fall in love with her again. I might just be angry with her—How could she give birth to the heir to my nation without telling me?"

A long silence stretched into a full minute of the two men communicating with one long stare. Aang could see it in his eyes; Zuko was speaking nothing but the truth; the man wasn't, at the moment, attached to Katara (at least no more than he was attached to Mae at the moment), and he was angry at Katara for lying about Lee.

"She only lied to you in order to lie to me." Aang said.

"She lied to both of us," Zuko said.

"Yes, but she lied more to me-"

"Hey do you want to fight about it?" Zuko asked.

Aang was surprised by the fierce tone, but found a hint of humor in Zuko's eyes—very faint, but there. Aang almost felt like smiling. Instead, his shoulders sagged and a very weary sigh slipped out of his mouth as the avatar revealed how truly tired he was at that moment.

"I have a lot on my mind—I can't even think straight right now. I don't even know where to go."

"Stay with me and Suki," Sokka offered.

Aang flinched and shook his head. "I'm sorry—but I really can't be near—"

"So stay here—it's not like I don't have room." Zuko said.

As strange as it was, it didn't sound like a bad idea. Aang didn't know if it was because he'd already forgiven the fire-lord, or maybe, on some level, he just wanted to keep an eye on him, in case Katara came looking for him.

The rain came down with determination in each drop. Aang never felt as far from home as he did in a rain storm in Zuko's palace. At the Poles, a little rain enlivened the people. Here in the capital city of the Fire Nation, everyone grew grouchy, closed their windows and doors, and didn't leave their houses until it stopped.

Aang was spared from the duties of a visiting avatar. Zuko made it clear that his visitor was simply a wealthy bison herder named Aang this time. He wasn't bothered; there wasn't a lot of things going on here in the winter. He spent his days with the blankets pulled over his head trying to forget what he knew.

It was the third week of his misery when he remembered what his old soul buddy had told him about living with the moles. To truly forget was impossible. It looked like he was just going to have to learn to live with a knife in his back.

He got out of the bed, waking MoMo, who had eaten himself into a mini-coma as he always did when he lived in this palace. The monkey lemur chattered and pulled the covers back over his head.

Aang needed air. He threw the shutters open. The rain flecked his face and stirred his senses. He grimaced. He could do without the water. With an arch of his arm, he prevented the rain from coming inside. The air was thick and sharp with a biting cold; exactly what his deprived lungs needed.

Movement caught Aang's eye below. Squinting through the veils of rain, he realized what he was looking at. The resolute outline of Toph, perched on a bolder of her creation. She was soaked to the bone, looked like she had been out there since the first drop fell, just sitting and looking around.

Her hair had been beaten out of its usual folded-up-do and hang down in sopping tendrils that clung to the thick, firm muscles of her back and hips that deprived her waist of the soft feminine curve. He thought at first that she was doing it again, that thing where she pretended she could see—but then he realized that in a rain storm, Toph _could_ see. The vibrations of each rain drop hitting the surface of an object allowed Toph to see in finer detail than any other time.

As Aang watched, she rose from the boulder as if inspired—still completely unaware that she was being watched, and perhaps bold because of it-and began swaying and twirling. At first it was nothing special, just idle movement to take in the feeling of the rain on her skin, but then it became one deliberate movement after the next. She was dancing the _, a traditional dance of the earth kingdom; something she had been taught in her strict life as a pampered daughter of the wealthy.

She knew the dance well, and he could tell by the way she moved that it was her favorite. It was Aang's as well, as far as Earth Kingdom dances went. It just didn't look right without a partner. He barely knew what he was doing as he leapt lightly out of the window and cushioned his two story drop with rising air that slowed his fall.

The rain eagerly soaked into every inch of his new bison wool tunic—he'd finally been able to master the skill of waxing the wool as he twisted it into yarn, making the clothing less itchy. Despite it's built in water-proofing, Aang was as wet as a fish by the time he got across the courtyard.

Toph was either too distracted by the vibration of the rain, or too lost in the dance to notice his light steps across the flooded flagstones. He stopped just out of arms reach, still unnoticed. Up close, he could see through the beige and pale green fabric of her clothing. Her skin was nothing but goose-pimples in the freezing water and her breasts were very defined.

"I didn't know you danced." Aang said.

She jumped back, both feet leaving the ground and splashing back into the inch of ground water streaming across the courtyard, toward the gutter where a mother turtle-duck was floating past with her young on some type of adventure out of the garden, since for the moment all the world was a pond.

"Sorry to scare you." Aang said, spitting out the water that streamed from his nose into his mouth as he talked. He was breathing heavily for some reason. It was one part the chill of the rain and another part something else.

"I didn't see you there."

"You're supposed to see everything," Aang said with his first smile in weeks. "Isn't that how it works? You see it first and then you let me stumble around in the dark until I crash into it, and then we pretend I saw it all along."

She smiled and laughed once before it became a shiver. "It's warmer if we dance." She said.

Aang nodded. She stepped up to his side and took position, but she wasn't looking forward as she was meant too. She was looking at Aang. "I didn't know you grew your hair out so long."

"I told you."

"I forgot. I see what I saw years ago, the last time you were caught in the rain with me. I don't alter these pictures to fit with the present. They're too special."

Aang looked down at her, blinking and squinting as the rain messed with his eyelashes. With her hair plastered to her forehead like it was, he couldn't see anything of her eyes, but she was still beautiful somehow. Her pearly skin dimpled twice in each cheek when she smiled like this, showing both rows of perfect teeth between peach colored lips.

She bit her lower lip as she listened up at him. "I see you." She said.

Aang's arm closed around her straight waist and he pulled her body up against his for a kiss. There difference in height was such that her head was tilted as far back as it would go and he was stooping for his lips to meet hers as he cupped her face. The rain found new tracks to stream down as each contour and crest of her face was tasted by his lips.

If they weren't going to dance to keep warm then there was no reason to stay outside in the cold rain. Aang swept her up bridal style and carried her back through the window. Within moments, two dark stains marked where they stood dripping on the rug. A few moments after that, the water in the discarded clothing slowly spread to other parts of the rug, the bed, the soft couch were they were forgotten for a few hours.

Whether they were meant to be only friends or not; it wasn't that way any longer. Toph had stopped him once when her last freezing garment was peeled from her skin. "You aren't doing this because you're mad at her are you?"

"Who—oh," he laughed. Toph laughed too; she couldn't believe he had actually forgotten his wife for a second. His hands were bringing her skin to life in places that no one else had touched; her bare stomach, and waist, hips and thighs-"No," he promised, "I'm doing this because this is the way the mountain formed."

Toph giggled, and slid her hands up the rippling muscles of his arms to twist her wrists together behind his neck. His nose pressed against hers and his loose wet hair tickled her face and neck. "I don't know. We were pretty set in our ways to be just friends."

Aang laughed, his hot breath flowering across the skin on her right breast. "I've never met a mountain I couldn't move."

The feeling of rightness that encompassed the view of the world from their bed put them both in a drunken stupor for the rest of the day and well into the morning. Because her brain was unable to perceive the change from day into night and vice versa, it had always been difficult for Toph to fall sleep. With Aang as a pillow, sleep was the thing she wanted to stay away. She kept herself up by humming different songs, her light thin fingers taping out the rhythm on Aang's abdominal muscles. The first time she did it, she found that he was ticklish there, and just had to torture him for a minute or two instead, but her power over him was matched when he found that she was ticklish on her lower back and waist. It became a tickle war until she pinned him beneath her on the floor and they forgot what they were doing for a while.

Zuko didn't knock because he was supposed to not have a reason to; his bold, bashing, and loud entrance had been meant to startle the avatar out of the miserable coma he had probably slipped into again. He found the bed empty, unmade and severely tussled. Heaps of laundry lay scattered around the room. Though it had been raining all night, the window was wide open; the curtains were still stained by the rain as they fluttered in the breeze of the clear morning.

"Hel—lo—o," Zuko said, his enthusiasm dying quickly as he met the catastrophe scene. With a scramble of elbows and knees on hardwood, Aang sat up from the floor on the other side of the bed. His hair was tangled as if it had gone un-brushed for a couple of days. Zuko would have taken it for a bad sign if, during Aang's scramble to sit up and greet his visitor, a girl hadn't gasped, shrieked and then jerked the sheet from the bed with one powerful pull.

"Uh," was all Zuko could think to say.

Aang rubbed sleep out of his eyes, looked around the floor at his feet, found something, shook it out and stepped into his pants. "Zuko, this—it all just sort of happened. I—"

Zuko was laughing. He waved Aang excuses aside, doubled over for a minute, and then straightened to wipe his eyes and get enough breath to speak. "Listen, so long as that's not Mae, I think we'll be all right."

Aang flinched and drummed his fingers on his hip. "Um.." he said as if thinking fast. Zuko's eyes widened, but a heel attached to a sturdy little leg came up to meet the avatar's upper thigh, and Aang whelmed in pain. "Joking! It was a joke!"

Zuko laughed again. "You know better than to mess with Rock Fist. How are you this morning, Toph?"

"Great, thanks," Toph said from out of sight.

"Good." Zuko scratched the back of his head. "Well, I'll, uh, leave you two to it."

He slipped out of the room like smoke, the click of the latch virtually the only proof that he had gone. Toph pressed her ear to the floor to make sure his footsteps moved away from the door. Once they were gone, she covered her mouth to stifle a loud giggle. "That was embarrassing!"

Aang sank to his knees and then lowered himself on top of her. "He didn't see anything."

"He saw the state of this room. It can't be good."

Aang smiled into the crook of her neck. "Oh it was good."

"Stop it," Toph said, failing to sound too demanding. "We have to get dressed. You have someone to talk to."

Aang stopped all that he was doing and then groaned as he rolled onto his back. "You're going to make me be honorable and understanding aren't you?"

"I can't make you do anything that you were going to do anyway."

He sighed. "I want you to come with me."

Toph was surprised enough to sit up, but it was too early for something like that, so she found Aang's stomach and rested there for a minute instead. "Is that a good idea?"

He ran his hand up and down her arm. "She won't try to kill you or anything; I don't think."

Toph snorted. Aang kissed the top of her head. "The biggest thing Katara was upset about when I found out was that I would be alone. She would have left me a long time ago if I had just told her that I'll always have you." Although what he said was over-all a positive thing, his voice still broke as he remembered what he had thought was the happiest years of his marriage—all of it a lie; her way of passing time as she stayed with her charity case.

Toph pulled his head up to kiss him in a way that pushed the sadness away. Then he rested her forehead on his lower lip, her warm breath tickling his neck. "Don't think of it like that," she said. "You had a real marriage, with real love, but it ended, like all good things do."

Aang pushed his eyebrows low over his eyes as he looked down at her. "Some good things never end; look at this."

Toph smiled and readjusted herself over him so that all of her facial features were in line with his. "I never said this was a good thing. You've been nothing but trouble for me since the day we found each other." Then before Aang could kiss her, she stood up, taking the sheet with her in case someone else thought it would be contusive to burst into the room. Aang let his head drop back onto the floor and rubbed his face.

Aang touched down in a foot of dry snow outside of the ice-cottage. He had every right to just enter the house, but knocking felt more appropriate. Three short raps on the wooden door left his frozen knuckles stinging. There was a pause before the door opened. Katara looked guilty but proud. It would never cease to amaze the avatar how such conflicting emotions could share equal parts of her face, but then again, she was a water bender truly and deeply in love with a fire bender.

As this revelation came to him, he couldn't help but smile. The expression confused her. "Hello Aang," she said softly.

"Daddy?" Kiki asked from within the house. The pitter-patter of running feet preceded the ball of energy that was his daughter, who came crashing out of the house, into the snow and up his legs into his arms.

Aang lost his breath as her little arms closed tightly around him in a strong hug. His heart twisted and he squeezed her back, tears springing to his eyes. He'd had no idea how much he'd missed his children until that moment.

"Hi, Keek," he said happily, "I love you."

"I love you too Daddy," she said, without thought or wonder as to why he was expressing such a sentiment so randomly. He laughed.

"I'm sorry I didn't see you for so long," he said.

"Where did you go?"

"I was staying at the Fire Lord's Palace," he answered, meeting Katara's eye over Kiki's little shoulder. Katara's eyes widened, and her hand went to the necklace at her throat.

"Where's your little brother?" Aang asked her daughter.

"Taking a nap," Kiki answered.

"Good," he said giving her one final squeeze. "You should be too. Let me and Mommy talk, okay?"

"Okay," she said. Before leaping out of his arms, she pecked him on the cheek. Katara ran her thin fingers through Kiki's hair as she passed her back into the house.

"You were staying with him?" Katara asked. She sounded breathless. "Why him?"

Aang planted his staff between his feet and leaned against it like a walking stick as he took a moment to consider exactly how to say it. "I already told you," he said, "I don't care if he loves you or you love him. He's still one of my best friends."

Tears of relief were in her eyes but they couldn't fall, not yet. She had too many questions and apologies to make. "How can you be so—so forgiving?"

"I'm the avatar," he said with a smile. While it was as good a reason as any, she wasn't going to let him get away with that excuse. At her look, his playful smile sobered, and his Adam's apple moved slowly up and down his throat as he swallowed, "and…I get it. I understand what you were going through all these years."

Her eyebrows moved closer together. "What do you mean?"

"Can I come inside? It's kind of a long story."

Katara sat in dumbfounded silence. Her bewilderment was due partly to the fact that Aang and both the children were home, but the house was completely silent when such a phenomenon had never happened before, and partly because of what her husband was telling her.

"You're with Bright Eyes? And Bright Eyes is Toph?"

Aang couldn't conceal utter joy as he thought about it. He nodded. "I know it's crazy—and it's all my fault. If I had only embraced my destiny when I first learned I was the avatar over a century ago, I could have spared you years of the inner torment of being married to the wrong man and her a lifetime of loneliness…"

Katara saw tender love and heartache on the avatar's face as he contemplated his hand in Toph's pain, and her own confusion. In that moment, Katara forgave him—hearing he'd been with Toph had angered her like an injured snow tiger-bear—but that soft look on his matured face drove home what he was trying to tell her. He loved Toph as deeply as she loved Zuko. Putting herself in his shoes, she finally saw how weak she'd been, and how telling the truth could have solved everyone's problems sooner.

She took his hand, gasping, with tears in her eyes. "Will you ever forgive me, Aang? For lying to you?"

"Only if you forgive me for not telling you sooner about Bright Eyes."

"No, stop. You were right in concealing that to a wife you believed loved you. I should have told you about Zuko—I shouldn't have used you. It was wrong."

"It couldn't have been all wrong. We did get Kiki out of it." Aang said with his old twinkling smile. He squeezed her hand and kissed the knuckles. "You are forgiven."

They sat in silence for a few moments, soaking in the full disclosure between them. It was their first true moment of complete intimacy between them, and it was platonic. It was as it should have always been.

"What now?" she asked. Aang didn't need her to clarify.

"A girl needs her mother. You know that more than anyone. I'll visit Keek as often as you allow."

"You can come whenever you want."

Aang smiled in appreciation, and then added somewhat hesitantly. "And, you know, a boy needs his father…his _real_ father."

Katara drew in a deep breath at the mention of Lee and his father. She almost couldn't look Aang in the eye, but at last she did—it was so much easier now that all the truths were out there. She felt like she had her old friend back.

"I don't think he'll ever want to talk to me again."

"What makes you say that?"

"I lied to him about the heir to his kingdom! He has every right to have me killed for treason!"

Aang actually laughed. "I don't think it'll come to that. And it isn't as bad as you think. Lee is still young. If you act quickly, there will be a day when he won't be able to remember being anything other than the Prince of the Fire Nation."

Aang could see it in Katara's eyes. That was exactly what she feared. She didn't want her children to have that life, what she thought of as a cage.

"Katara," Aang said seriously, meeting her eye and holding it with all the authority and wisdom of an avatar. "Not every prince has it as bad as Zuko did—not if they follow their destinies, as he learned to do. Lee's has been written, and he is the prince who will continue Zuko's good work in maintaining harmony in the nations of the world. The sooner you allow him to embrace that, the easier his life will be. I promise."

"I know you are right…but…" Tears were in her eyes, and she didn't finish speaking her fear. Instead, she dried her face and nodded curtly, business-like. "We will move to the Fire Nation."

"Mae's gone," Toph said by way of announcing her presence in Zuko's garden. He was pretending to meditate on a rock. Really all that was happening was that he was sitting perfectly still, and obsessing over the fact that he was a father, no better than his own; a two year old son who didn't even know him, another one on the way he didn't feel anything for…okay, that wasn't true—he still couldn't wait to see the little person that would be half him, half Mae—but his excitement in the matter had been severly injured in learning that it wasn't his first creation. What he could feel for it now was only…mild excitement, more like a deep curiousity. After admitting this to Sokka, he was informed that this was typical for men and for second children,

"But just you wait until you hold him or her in yours arms. Then you'll find it."

"Find what?"

"The love—and it'll punch you harder than Toph ever could, I promise you that, so be prepared."

Sokka had eased Zuko, but his troubles were not over, and it was precisely because of what Toph had just said. Mae was gone, and she'd left no note or word as to where she'd went, where she'd taken his second heir.

"I know," Zuko said. He didn't move anything but his lips, but his voice was as unsteady as if he'd spoken during jumping jacks. "This is such a mess!"

"Why did she leave?"

"She heard about Lee…she must be so mad at me. I have to find her."

"She's not mad," a new voice said.

Zuko's breath left his body in an audible whoosh and he twisted to see behind him. Toph was not alone. Katara—a few years older, wiser, and more beautiful—was standing in the archway with Lee on her hip, and a letter with Mae's seal in her hand. They were both dressed in Fire Nation clothes.

He'd admitted to the avatar that he didn't know if he still loved her.

He didn't.

But in the next three seconds, he fell in love with her again.

"I just wanted you to officially meet your son," she said hesitantly.

His heart picked up speed like an ostrich-horse running in place for a minute, building up speed before shooting off at amazing speeds. His breath was uneasy because of it, and his face didn't know if it should laugh or cry. He slid off the rock and went to her.

She would forever amaze him with her ability to steal his heart so swiftly, with so few words and that one look—a look that said he was strong enough to do anything.

Toph grinned as the fire lord's hurried steps gave her enough vibrations by which to see at least the first kiss of their reunion; the last footfall outlined Katara's face in Zuko's hands, and their lips together.

The next step was a few wet sounding moments later, and it was taken by both of them at the same time. Lee was on Zuko's hip, and Katara was on his arm. It was the first step of their destiny together.

A subtle waft of air was the giveaway, but Toph was a few surprises away from learning to read that sign. Aang's hand rested on her shoulder before his dainty toes touched down behind her. She jumped. The footsteps of the fire lord and his family were fading around the corner. Toph turned and punched Aang—he caught her fist in his palm and closed cool fingers around her knuckles,

"Miss me?" he asked.

She stepped into the crook of his arm, between him and his staff. "It was bound to happen sooner or later."

"What was?"

"With all the destinies the life of an avatar touches—one of them was bound to collide with yours, get tangled."

Aang chuckled. He loved the imagery. "It reminds me of the mail shuts in Ba Sing Se. Putting it like that, this whole thing _was_ fun!"

"But now it's over, and I like it. Like getting my feet on the ground after flying."

Aang kissed her cheekbone.

"It feels good," she said.

He did it again. She laughed, "Not that,"

"Then what?" he asked, idly smelling her hair and pressing his lips against her head. She ran a finger along his stomach and pressed his bellybutton, making him jump slightly from the ticklishness. "Finding my destiny—let's not lose it again, okay?"

Aang was still smiling, because her light little fingers were still tickling him. "Deal," he promised.

**Author's Note: Please leave a review! Tell what you liked or didn't like, anything, we just want to hear from you :)**


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